The sixth annual house concert festival in Grand Rapids’ Eastown neighborhood featured tightly packed performances by Mark Lavengood, Lando Chill, Glum, Mutual Benefit, Timbre, Breathe Owl Breathe, Tom Hymn and many more.
Lo-Fi Lamp Light: Detroit indie-rocker Stef Chura kicked off the sets Friday at Bird House. (Photo/Kendra Kamp)
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Lamps do indeed light the cozy performances, but the illuminating glow of the Lamp Light Music Festival extends well beyond that.
Take Friday night’s opening lineup of the sixth annual house concert festival in Grand Rapids’ Eastown neighborhood.
Packed Quarters: The weekend was full of intimate house shows. (Photo/Anna Sink)
With attendees strolling between three houses along Benjamin Avenue, the sets by well-known and emerging national and local acts ranged from rock (Glum) to folky bluegrass (Mark Lavengood) to R&B-hued hip hop (Lando Chill) to electronic music (Pink Sky), delivered in tightly packed quarters in living and dining rooms where attentive concertgoers could literally reach out and touch the performers.
Beyond the warm applause and congenial interaction between artist and listener, there’s also an intimacy and camaraderie that develops between audience members who greet each other cordially and find near-instant unity in soaking up what amounts to a snug and exclusive musical experience.
Outside the pleasant-looking Murphy House on Friday night, the low rumble of a standup bass was barely audible. For casual passersby, it likely came as a surprise that what they had heard was part of one of Grand Rapids’ most unique and beloved music festivals.
That’s the charm of Lamp Light: If you’re not looking for it, you just might miss it. Those who didn’t miss it over the weekend were treated to 29 musical acts, a story-telling hour, a workshop and vendors providing crafts, food and beverages.
FROM CALMING FOLK TO ROBUST ROCK
Inside Murphy House, the Mark Lavengood Trio gave a tight performance – fit for any venue in Grand Rapids – for several dozen fans packed shoulder to shoulder in the living room-turned-venue.
As Lavengood put it, everything at Lamp Light was “copacetic” and he marveled at what “a monster of an organism” Lamp Light has grown to become.
That excellent mood and music continued Saturday and Sunday with well-known and not-so-well-known acts alike, performing with no distractions: just fans standing face-to-face with artists. Close your eyes, and you might not be able to tell you’re in a room with 70 other polite and encouraging listeners.
Unresolved: Tom Hymn’s Tangerine Dream closed out the festival. (Photo/Kendra Kamp)
On Saturday, fans enjoyed more intimate performances by artists such as Mutual Benefit, Gifts or Creatures and May Erlewine with moments quiet enough for the light drizzle outside to serve as a calming backing track.
With bands such as Timbre, Lamplight got loud, too. Eerie harp and violin arrangements were accompanied by thunderous rhythms, prompting anyone who had been sitting down to jump up and sway with the music. Timbre’s cover of Radiohead’s “Daydreaming” was particularly otherworldly.
Things may have been rowdiest during Tom Hymn’s Tangerine Dream on Sunday night, the last set of the festival. Hymn and a crew of instrumentalists uncorked a wide-ranging array of sounds and samples that ranged from folk to psychedelic.
The madness culminated in a washed-out finale of distortion and sporadic playing. But Hymn stopped the band just shy of its final note.
“The festival can’t resolve!” yelled Hymn.
And so there was no resolve. As fans poured out into the street, that cozy feeling of community and creativity persisted.
PHOTO GALLERY: Lamp Light Music Festival 2017
Photos by Kendra Kamp, Anna Sink, Devin Anderson, Matt Marn
Copyright 2017, Spins on Music LLC
