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Area music festivals pack in a ton of bands
BY CARLY CARIOLI
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Pick a festival, any festival. This year’s Newport Folk Festival (401-847-3700) kicks off Friday at the Hotel Viking with "Endless Skyway," a tribute to Woody Guthrie in story and song. On Saturday, the action moves to Fort Adams State Park, where Lyle Lovett leads a superstar song circle with John Hiatt, Guy Clark, and Joe Ely, and the likes of John Prine, Angélique Kidjo, Nickel Creek, and the Waifs hold court. It wraps up on Sunday with sets from Joan Armatrading, Ani DiFranco, Aimee Mann, and many more. More adventurous head-trippers may want to cruise the Berkshire Mountain Music Fest (877-42-FESTS), which began as a hippie jam-band confab but has grown into a brouhaha embracing everything from funky jazz to psychedelic pop to organic trance. This year’s Berkfest, at Ski Butternut in Great Barrington, includes Medeski Martin & Wood, the New Deal, and the Almighty Senators on Friday; the Flaming Lips, Galactic, Sam Bush, Addison Groove Project, Cabaret Diosa, and Kaki King on Saturday; and the Greyboy All-Stars, Sound Tribe Sector 9, Warren Haynes, the Cuban Free Jazz Project, and Alvin Youngblood Hart on Sunday. The Lips also headline their own gig at the State Theatre (207-780-8265) in Portland on Friday with Mt. Egypt (a/k/a pro skateboarder Travis Graves), an intriguing new singer-songwriter in the Elliott Smith/Will Oldham mold whose debut, Battening the Hatches, is out on the Warner Bros.–affiliated Record Collection label. A refuge for the young, the loud, and the snotty can be found in Saturday’s inaugural Suburban Noise Festival (800-MYSEATS, or www.suburbannoise.com) at the Topsfield Fairgrounds, an attempt to replicate the all-punk all-the-time atmosphere of Warped and Holidays in the Sun. The two-stage line-up includes a stellar mix of old-school and new-school cats: ’80s legends from D.R.I. and D.O.A. to Slapshot and Gang Green; ’90s faves Kill Your Idols, Down by Law, and skater-turned-punk Duane Peters (US Bombs, the Hunns) — whose outfit now includes former Nashville Pussy bassist Corey Parks; and current heroes Darkbuster, the Explosion, the USM, and the Kings of Nuthin’. The Wellfleet Beachcomber (508-349-6055), overlooking the National Seashore, throws its annual "Dune Tunes" weekend, which benefits the "Wonders of the Sea" charity established in the name of the series’s late founder, Trey Helliwell. Boston indie-pop bands Chauncey and Mappari headline Friday night’s gig; on Saturday the Beachcomber hosts a day-long showdown between NYC’s Oranges Band, Vic Thrill, and the Knockout Drops and Boston’s own Helicopter Helicopter, the Peasants, and the Beatings. Meanwhile, the alterna-pop half-sister act of Tanya Donelly and Kristin Hersh headlines a day-long outdoor festival on Bridge Street in Bellows Falls, Vermont, with Juliana Hatfield, the Stone Coyotes, and Blake Hazard. Then on Sunday, the sisters go it alone for an acoustic gig at the Meeting House (call 800-THE-TICK, or visit www.fortapache.net, for tickets to both shows) in nearby Rockingham.
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