Grand Rapids’ concert weekend in photos: Big Gigantic, Kip Moore, Los Lobos, Talib Kweli, Heavyweight Finals

Shakin’ off the cold and snow, music lovers warmed up with bluesy Tex-Mex (Los Lobos), hip-hop (Talib Kweli), indie-soul (Genna & Jesse), EDM (Big Gigantic), heavy metal (Mushroomhead, Heavyweights finals), folk (Ruth and Max Bloomquist) and more. (Photos, video)

 

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Talk about musical diversity amid February’s doldrums.

The weekend started with a snow day on Friday. Good thing, because that gave folks time to recover from a late-night romp of a sold-out country show starring Kip Moore at The Intersection, followed by a hectic Friday night: Hip-hop’s Talib Kweli at The Pyramid Scheme, metal’s Mushroomhead at The Intersection, livetronica/electronic dance music’s Big Gigantic igniting a massive crowd at The Orbit Room, indie-soul/folk’s Genna & Jesse at opensourcestudio, pianist Andrew Le in the MAJIC concert series, and Los Lobos at the Forest Hills Fine Arts Center.

Although only about 700 people turned out for Los Lobos’ first-ever appearance at the FHFAC on Friday night, the band’s lively second set had all the elements that have long made these guys the lovable and influential group that they are: dance-inspiring jams, rhythmic diversity and blues-infused wallop.

After a surprisingly short opening set (with a few technical glitches) in front of a reserved crowd, Los Lobos returned to play an hour and 10 minutes of energetic material ranging from classics reaching deep into their catalog (“Evangeline”) to medleys of familiar covers (“Not Fade Away”). Perhaps not the most inspiring or polished performance I’ve ever seen from these guys, but they’re infinitely entertaining as they change things up on the fly.

Saturday’s musical lineup kept things buzzing: California’s rootsy The Mother Hips at Founders Brewing Co., folk’s Ruth & Max Bloomquist at Spring Lake’s Seven Steps Up and the Heavyweight Championship of Rock finals, which I helped judge as The Intersection’s walls rattled and melted away.

The Severed Process from the Muskegon area brought a huge devoted fan base with them and won Saturday’s hard-fought competition in front of about 900 metal fans at The Intersection. But there were terrific performances all around, including Flood the Desert’s closing set led by bassist Zach Flora, who won the evening’s shredding competition. And when it comes to volume, Aside the Ashes topped ’em all, hitting 101 decibels on my db meter.

By the way, The Severed Process took home $2,500 in cash, 30 hours of recording time, a professional photo shoot and more for winning the competition sponsored by MoshPit Nation and 101.3 FM The Fox, and hosted by John Serba.

All in all, a wonderfully hectic weekend. And this doesn’t even count Journey’s rescheduled sold-out show at Van Andel Arena, but without a teleporter or Clone-O-Matic machine, you can’t be everywhere.