Category: Bear Creek Music Festival

Johnny Vidacovich at Bear Creek Music Fest: with The Trio, Jon Cleary, & Marco Benevento

It’s not often you get to see master New Orleans drummer Johnny Vidacovich play outside the city of New Orleans. But last November at Bear Creek Music Festival the man was everywhere sitting in with at least 5 different acts. I captured quite a big chunk of Bear Creek with my video camera, and I got some great footage of JohnnyV.

First I want to share a few videos of The Trio (which is the name of Johnny’s weekly Thursday night gig at the Maple Leaf, whether it involves 3 players or not). This particular Trio gig featured George Porter Jr on bass along with Jennifer Hartswick on trumpet. Freekbass was also a special guest for this set.

The Trio: Johnny Vidacovich, George Porter Jr & Jennifer Hartswick
Sunday, November 13, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
(4 of 4) Big Chief:

The Trio: Johnny Vidacovich, George Porter Jr & Jennifer Hartswick (w/ Freekbass)
Sunday, November 13, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
(2 of 4) Don’t Be Squeezin’ My Heart:

The Trio: Johnny Vidacovich, George Porter Jr & Jennifer Hartswick (w/ Freekbass)
Sunday, November 13, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
(3 of 4) Don’t Be Squeezin’ My Heart (cont.):

The Trio: Johnny Vidacovich, George Porter Jr & Jennifer Hartswick
Sunday, November 13, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
(1 of 4) Careful Who You Idolize:

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Next up is JohnnyV sitting in with Jon Cleary‘s “Piano, Bass & Drums” group, which features Johnny’s longtime Astral Project collaborator James Singleton on bass. BTW, the drummer on the second video here is Doug Belote, a drummer of quite some repute down in Cajun country. [Interesting factoid, Doug Belote briefly replaced Raymond Weber in Dumpstaphunk for a short run of shows in December of 2010 when Raymond was busy filming episodes of the HBO TV show Treme.]

Jon Cleary: Piano, Bass & Drums (w/ Johnny Vidacovich)
Saturday, November 12, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
Reconsider Baby, Get Low Down:

Jon Cleary: Piano, Bass & Drums
Saturday, November 12, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
I Get The Blues, Tipitina:

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Finally, I have some videos of Johnny sitting in with Marco Benevento performing the James Booker classic, Junco Partner. After that is a few more Marco Benevento videos, including one where Marco passes me his bottle of Makers Mark from the stage. That was a good start to the afternoon!

Marco Benevento (w/ Johnny Vidacovich)
Sunday, November 13, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
Junco Partner (James Booker cover) (1 of 2):

Marco Benevento (w/ Johnny Vidacovich)
Sunday, November 13, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
Junco Partner (James Booker cover) (2 of 2):

Marco Benevento (w/ Robert Walter)
Sunday, November 13, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
You Know I’m No Good (Amy Winehouse cover):

Marco Benevento
Saturday, November 12, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
Greenpoint, The Real Morning Party:

Marco Benevento
Saturday, November 12, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
The Real Morning Party (cont.), Atari:

Marco Benevento
Saturday, November 12, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
Hearbeats (The Knife cover):

And if you made it this far, then you are certainly a big JohnnyV fan. At that, you will be glad to know that Johnny was recently added to the Live Music Archive. I have recently uploaded over 30 audio recordings spanning from 2001 to 2011 and they are all available to be streamed or downloaded for free over at http://www.archive.org/details/JohnnyVidacovich.

Lettuce conquers Bear Creek Music Festival with 2 nights of face melting psychedelic funk

Over the course of two cold November nights in the Florida swamp, psychedelic funk super group Lettuce provided the soundtrack for an epic multi-night rage. Keeping the crowd in their palm with “classic” Lettuce tunes and busting out several new ones, the band was as fresh as ever, and primed to hit the recording studio just a few weeks later. The performance at these sets was so spot on that I’ve heard rumblings of a possible live release bonus disc to coincide with their forthcoming new album.

Here I bring you 74 minutes of video culled from both nights, including sit-ins by George Porter Jr. and Nigel Hall. This should get everyone primed for Bowlive III this week. Enjoy!

Lettuce
Sunday, November 13, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
(1 of 2) Blast Off, Ziggowatt, Sam Huff’s Flying Ragin’ Machine:

Lettuce
Sunday, November 13, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
(2 of 2) Need To Understand (w/ George Porter Jr), Nyack, Break Out > Relax:

Lettuce
Saturday, November 12, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
(1 of 2) Madison Square, By Any Shmeeans Necessary, Jack Flask:

Lettuce (w/ Nigel Hall)
Saturday, November 12, 2011 @ Bear Creek Music Festival
(2 of 2) Move On Up (after this video ends, they go into Joy & Pain, a Maze tune, then back into Move On Up to conclude an epic 18 minute Move On Up):

Big thanks to JB @ microcosmologist blog for sharing some of his up close Krasno footage, and thanks to Bob Adamek for the top photo.

Live Hip Hop at Bear Creek Music Fest 2011: Chali 2na & The House of Vibe All Stars + Boots Riley & The Coup with Silk-E

Bear Creek Music Festival was undoubtedly a funk fest, but there was a sprinkling of hip hop; and it was all live band hip hip, my favorite type.

Early Friday evening as dusk rolled in, Chali 2na and his band, The House of Vibe, locked shit down to a steadily growing crowd. Smiles were everywhere as the crowd anticipated a mind-blowing weekend. I shot a good 17 minutes of footage with my monopod held high.

This video is mainly tunes from Chali’s one and only solo album, 2009’s excellent and long awaited Fish Outta Water. Later in the set, Corey Glover, vocalist for Living Colour and more recently Galactic, joined for an old Jurassic 5 tune, Freedom. Unfortunately I only captured the 2nd half of this one. I guess I was too busy getting my party on and getting amped for the rest of the lineup that night at the Purple Hat stage, which included Garage A Trois, Medeski Martin & Wood, and Galactic.

Chali 2na & The House of Vibe Band 11/11/11 Bear Creek Music Festival
Get Focused > International, Comin’ Thru > Don’t Stop, Guns Up, Freedom (w/ Corey Glover):

(Download the full audio of Chali 2na’s set here.)

Later that night, as the temperatures began to drop into the 30’s, we headed to the heated indoor SOS Music Hall. The Coup was set up and ready to play, albeit to a very sparse crowd. After a heavy rock instrumental intro, Boots Riley busted out, spinning around in a leather tasseled overcoat. Pimp hand strong. Next, they busted out some classics before bringing out their secret weapon, Silk-E. If you don’t know, just press play.

The Coup 11/11/11 Bear Creek Music Festival
5 Millions Ways To Kill A CEO:

The Coup 11/11/11 Bear Creek Music Festival
Bullets & Love > Everythang > We Are The Ones:

I totally wanted to enjoy The Coup’s set longer, but I had to run back to the Purple Hat Stage so as not to miss the beginning of Medeski, Martin & Wood (videos coming soon).

After MMW’s set, I caught some of Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe covering The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers album (quite a let down and not very funky, IMO). I also caught a bit of KRAZ’s DJ set (that’s Eric Krasno of Soulive, Lettuce, and Chapter 2) in the silent disco. He was spinning Funkify Your Life by The Meters and tastefully tweaking some effects on top before getting into a mix of current hip hop.

At the same time, now well on the other side of midnight, Galactic was rocking the Purple Hat stage. As the temperature continued to drop into the low 30’s and everyone could see their own breath, dancing was the only way to stay warm. At this point, Galactic brought out Chali 2na and Boots Riley to perform From The Corner To The Block. Unfortunately, Boots stumbled a few times with his verse as his voice got raspy and started to go out, likely due to having just finished a 75 minute set with his own band. Chali, however, kept things on point with a live version of his collab with Galactic, Think Back. There are many more things I could say about the Galactic set as it was truly one of the most enjoyable sets of the weekend, but I digress. (Peep the full audio download of Galactic’s set here.)

Also, keep in mind that when Galactic finished at 1:30am, the night wasn’t over, we still had Dr. Klaw from 2 to 3:30am and I shot that entire set (videos coming soon of course). And Dr. Klaw was followed by Mike Dillon’s Hairy Apes BMX from 3:30 to 5am. (I only caught one song before calling it a night and crashing in my rugged and freezing tent.)

The following videos where not shot by me. (I didn’t get any videos of Galactic for some stupid reason. I think maybe my hands were too cold!). But these videos do showcase Chali’s appearance with Galactic, as well as the end portion of Chali 2na and his band’s set, featuring solos from each band member.

Galactic with Chali 2na 11/11/11 Bear Creek Music Festival
Think Back:

Galactic with Chali 2na & Boots Riley 11/11/11 Bear Creek Music Festival
From The Corner To The Block:

Chali 2na 11/11/11 Bear Creek Music Festival
Freedom (w/ Corey Glover), Quality Control, One More Chance:

Chali 2na 11/11/11 Bear Creek Music Festival
What’s Golden:

Chali 2na 11/11/11 Bear Creek Music Festival
Lock Shit Down, Rock Lobster, & band solos:

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