There
is no greater nightmare for the organizers of an outdoor event than the chance
of rain. That’s the situation that the organizers of Moontower Music Festival
were in as the day started for the inaugural festival in Midway (just outside
of Lexington, Kentucky).
Luckily
for them, the clouds went away about 15 minutes into the first band’s set and took
over for the rest of the day.
Moontower
is the brain child of LexEffect, an event management company in Lexington,
making Moontower the first music festival of its size in the city. With
neighboring cities Louisville and Cincinnati fully entranced in the music
festival scene with Forecastle and Bunbury respectively, Lexington was bound to
have their own piece of the pie.
With
Moontower was not a big showing comparable to the size of the previously two
mentioned festivals (there were only 8 acts), LexEffect representatives stated
that this year’s festival was a tester for an expansion to a two day festival
next year.
If
next year’s festival is successful as this year’s, there will be a bright
future in store for Moontower.
As
it was a tester year for Moontower, it also turned out to be tester sets for a
few of the bands. Buffalo Rodeo, A Lion Named Roar, and Brave Baby all debuts
new songs for the Moontower crowd.
Speaking
of the crowd, they were interesting to note. At the beginning of the day,
Moontower had the feel of a community gathering with people in chairs and on
blankets. As the day went on, the crowd got bigger and bigger.
We
can place the blame on that bigger crowd with the spot on selection of
Moontower final two acts of the day. They were the wisest choices that
LexEffect could have made with their size and budget and the crowd reflected
that choice as by the end of the day Moontower looked like co-headlining bill
for these two bands: country duo Sundy Best who now call Lexington their home
and Nashville jam rock group Moon Taxi.
Both
bands are very popular in Lexington and Kentucky as a whole, have fans that
will travel for them, put on a good live show, and are right at the edge of
getting big.
They
both were crowd pleasers at Moontower as well. Sundy Best, made up of down home
boys who came to Lexington by way of Prestonburg, Kentucky, relished in the
fact that they were playing in front of their own people again. They gave
shoutouts on stage, played their best songs, and got people dancing to an
acoustic guitar and cajon (small drum the musician sits on and hits with his or
her hands) that I would have never expected.
Moon
Taxi, on the other hand, has played to much bigger crowds than Sundy Best, having
a most of the festival circuit like Hangout and Bonnaroo. You could feel them
molding their performance to the smaller crowd, but there were about 300
faithful who poured all of themselves into Moon Taxi’s performance.
The
day turned out to be beautiful. The stage looked great, especially built just
in front of a smaller permanent stage that gave Moontower a mini-Red Rocks feel
with the stone background and open back. Logistically, things went smoothly as
well. The local food trucks were a success (especially the wonton nachos) and
there was a lot of space to move about and dance; some people were throwing a
frisbeee or playing with their dogs.
I’ll
be back to Moontower. As the rest of you should too.
