Peter McKibben of the Baltimore-based Herd of Main Street rolled up his sleeves at Stella Blues and wiped the sweat off his brow. “I thought the weather was supposed to be cool up here this time of year,” he said.
The Herd of Main Street played through last Friday’s heat wave, just one of a couple dozen bands who came from Connecticut, the Northeast, and beyond for the Elm City Music Fest, a three-day, multiple-venue music festival that gives musicians a chance to get ahead in their careers and get in front of a New Haven audience.
As an audience member informed McKibben, Friday night was the city’s hottest on record for the month of November. Right down the street, Wake Up Paradise, from Ocean Grove, N.J., was showcasing their impressive musicianship at Pacific Standard Tavern. The four-piece rock band was maybe what you would expect out of the Jersey Shore, only better, and they closed with an instrumental jam that made them harder to pigeonhole.
Later on, Brooklyn based electronic band A Love Like Pi felt the unusual temperature, which kept festivalgoers comfortable along Crown Street in t‑shirts well into the early morning while singer Lief Liebmann poured buckets of sweat onto his synthesizer under the stage lights.
Elm City Music Fest, now in its second year, was started by Vic Steffens, West Haven native and owner of Horizon Music Group, and Brian Cronin of ThatMag music magazine. Steffens and Cronin hoped to create a South by Southwest – style festival for New Haven. Last year’s festival filled three venues. This year’s grew to seven, all within walking distance of each other: Stella Blues, Tavern, Cask Republic, Cafe Nine, Kelly’s, Pacific Standard Tavern, and Elm City Social, which featured acoustic sets.
“We graduated, in a sense,” said Cronin.
The schedule featured live music at night and industry panels for musicians during the day. The festival also helped local bands swap out shows with touring acts, giving the New Haven scene some exposure.
As midnight approached, Tavern, Crown Street’s newest bar, hosted a standout performance by Jocelyn and Chris Arndt. The siblings have been playing together since they were four. Now they juggle school with music in Cambridge, Mass. Jocelyn performed like an unholy union of Amy Winehouse and Hannah Montana; Chris combined Hendrix with John Mayer. Their appearance belied the intensity with which they played; their show was like walking into a theatre expecting a Disney classic and finding a Quentin Tarantino flick instead.
Alessandro Powell Photo
At midnight the Kazoo Crew Family Band of Waterbury took the stage at Pacific Standard Tavern, a riot of pins, glow-in-the-dark sunglasses, and smiles straight out of Doctor Seuss. They played surprisingly disciplined jam music for such a large group; several of the presumed leaders may well have been jazz musicians. But these hippies also carried stealth kazoos on stage, and when they whipped out their much decorated, giant instruments, they played correctly. For the Elm City Music Fest, it all seemed perfectly normal.
