Summer Camp Music Festival 2023 - Saturday Recap
Summer Camp Saturday!
The penultimate day of the festival dawned bright and sunny with a full roster of bands old and new to check out.
I began at 1pm on the Starshine stage with a favourite – Melt. It being my third time seeing them live, I knew what to expect, but that does not mean they blew me away any less. Vocalist Veronica Stewart-Frommer led the band through passionate versions of their original songs before my personal highlight of the set hit – “Fade Into You” into the instrumental “Duh Duh.”
Keyboardist Eric Gabriel took the lead on the former before handing it off to shredder-in-chief Marlo Shankweiler for the ripping jam that followed. Awesome solos from drummer Andres Valbuena and bassist Lucas Saur closed out the tune.
Another amazing part of Melt’s set was the sit-in first of guitarist Jake Brownstein of Eggy on original “Inside” and then the other three members of his band on vocals for a cover of “The Best” in tribute to the late Tina Turner.
After Melt’s set, we headed over to the VIP lounge to catch Everyone Orchestra. Conducted by Matt Butler, this all-improv set brings together an all-star lineup musicians to make up songs on the spot. Yesterday’s lineup featured Vinnie Amico and Al Schnier of moe., Joel Cummins of Umphrey’s McGee, Marlo and Veronica from Melt, Alana Rocklin of STS9, and Adam Fox of Audiodacity.
Watching these musicians create songs about lava lamps, snacks, and Jay Blakesberg on the spot was a pretty amazing experience and I look forward to seeing more iterations of Everyone Orchestra in the future.
Cory Wong was up next on the Moonshine stage – another one of my favourite artists who I was looking forward to seeing at Summer Camp. Without his usual touring vocalist, we were treated to a 75-minute set of Cory Wong original instrumental music with more of a jammy twist than normal at his headline shows. An incredible sandwich of “Smooth Move” -> “Lee” -> “Smooth Move” with a filthy synth solo from keyboardist Kevin Gastonguay was personal highlight until Wong reminded me of why “Meditation” is my favourite song of his during the set-closing rendition.
Resting up for the evening’s festivities, I returned to Moonshine to catch moe.’s first set of the evening. While I am not familiar with the band’s catalogue, I thoroughly enjoyed the seemingly never-ending flow from song to song, including a unique take on “West L.A. Fadeaway.”
Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade was next – I’ll save the longer-winded review of them for when I see the performance again on Tuesday, but needless to say their full performance of Pink Floyd’s Animals was absolutely PHENOMENAL.
Back to Moonshine for the bulk of the night and the Umphrey’s/moe. collaborative set. I had no idea what to expect for sit ins and more during this set, and what did happen absolutely blew me away. As I was walking up, guitarists Jake Cinninger, Chuck Garvey, and Al Schnier were blazing away at a fiery “Meat” (not the Phish song) with the rest of moe. on stage. Various combinations of band members and swaps continued with an excellent “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” before a cool performance of “Rebubula” that was started by moe. and saw a full-band switch mid-song so UM could close it out.
Almost every member from both bands came on stage for the two-song closing segment of “Don’t Fear The Reaper” and “We’re An American Band.” The former featured a gigantic cowbell prop hoisted at the back of the stage that moe. bassist Rob Derhak smacked with a giant mallet throughout the song. Goose drummer Ben Atkind was also brought on stage to play cowbell as the iconic Will Ferrell SNL sketch played on video screens adjacent to the stage.
UM drummer Kris Myers fronted the closer as the crowd went absolutely wild – as the clock struck midnight, there was still a full 90-minute set of Umphrey’s left to be played.
The sextet opened with a well-jammed “All in Time” that would act as the bookend for the set. It was all killer, no filler for Umphrey’s as they rocked the late-night crowd with a much heavier set than Friday afternoon’s. Keyboardist Joel Cummins blew my mind with some crazy Moog Voyager work on numerous songs, as he is wont to do.
When Umphrey’s ended, I headed over to the Campfire stage to check out some of Papadosio’s VERY late set, thoroughly enjoying the psychedelic jams before finally calling it a night.
With three days down and one to go, I would like to give a HUGE amount of credit to the festival organizers and staff who have made it an incredibly smooth weekend – the grounds have been clean, the bands have been on schedule, and it has really been an incredible experience!
Today – Eggy, Sierra Hull, Willie Nelson, Vulfpeck, more Umphrey’s…let’s finish it right!