Thursday’s Fourth of July bashes kicked off the weekend in explosive style, with performances at Meijer Gardens, Coast West Music Festival, The Intersection, Zellie’s Opry House, The Pyramid Scheme and the City Beach in Grand Haven.
Pumping Up the Crowd: Detroit’s Wilson got loud and sweaty with its heavy metal fans in The Stache on Saturday. (Photo/Anthony Norkus Photography)
“Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose …”
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Buddy Guy performing at Coast West on Friday. Photo/Coast West Music Festival
Yup, just thought of another appropriate Fourth of July tune to go with my Top 10 “freedom rock” list: Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee,” as brilliantly interpreted by Janis Joplin.
This weekend, there was plenty to win musically, with free-wheeling and sizzling hot (and humid) performances across West Michigan for the Independence Day holiday:
• Grand Rapids’ Fourth of July extravaganza at downtown’s Ah-Nab-Awen Park with Ultraviolet Hippopotamus, Blue Molly, Kris Hitchcock & Small Town Son and Three’s a Crowd lighting up the stage with more than 20,000 people cheering them on;
• Country’s Montgomery Gentry, with West Michigan’s own Joey Hyde opening the show, revving up a small but enthused crowd of about 1,000 at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park on Friday, with fans rushing to the front of the stage to dance and cheer their heroes;
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• Grand Haven/Muskegon’s Vincent Hayes Project getting the opportunity to open for Buddy Guy and Jonny Lang at the first-ever Coast West Music Festival in Muskegon, then greeting fans and signing autographs fro two hours after the Friday show that Hayes called the band’s “best big show ever.” The festival, which drew 75,000 people over six nights, wrapped on Saturday with performances by Greg Allman, Three Days Grace and more;
• Detroit heavy metal-meisters Wilson cranking it up in The Stache at The Intersection for a Saturday night CD-release show that attracted, well, an ultra-enthusiastic throng of metal-heads;
• The ChupaCobras playing right on the Lake Michigan beach, specifically City Beach in Grand Haven, for Saturday’s Pedro’s Pig Roast bash, which also included Minnie Morey & the Pacific Island Dancers;
• North Carolina bluegrass quartet Mountain Feist regaling a sold-out crowd at Zellie’s Opry House in Howard City on Saturday, with another West Michigan “hometown boy,” Calder Baker, on banjo. As the band put it on Facebook: “Not a bad way to end the tour!”
• Indie-rocker Dax Riggs, who started with sludge metal’s Acid Bath, playing The Pyramid Scheme, along with Grand Rapids’ own Benjamin Riley.
(For a review and photo gallery of Sunday night’s David Byrne/St. Vincent concert, click here.)
THE LOCAL SPINS WEEKEND PHOTO GALLERY (JULY 7, 2013)
Email John Sinkevics at jsinkevics@gmail.com.
Copyright 2013, Spins on Music
