City Stages Video Wrap Up

For all the hype Bonnaroo receives just a few hours south, we had a pretty good festival in Birmingham last weekend. For those whoa Aren't familiar with City Stages, it used to be one of the better festivals around. However, years of bad weather and debt trouble hurt the event and made it a shadow of it's former self. But Stages booked a deal with a national booking agency that also books for Bonnaroo and things turned for the better this year. While still not what it used to be, it had a great lineup this year. Here are some highlights of the weekend:

FRIDAY

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - I'll let a quote from my son Charlie be the review here. "Daddy this is cool. It is so loud I feel like I have 2 hearts." In other words he rocked. Also, he gave me one of the best memories ever from a music festival. When they played the DBT song "outfit" and Jason dedicated it to his father and all fathers, my son crawled in my lap and said "Daddy I love you. You are a good dad." Folks it doesn't get any better than that.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - ''Grown,'' live at City Stages


Old Crow Medicine Show - It was late and already way past my son's bedtime so we had to miss OCMS but I heard they were good.

SATURDAY

I had unavoidable family obligations on Saturday. So I missed my 3rd day of Stages in the 18 years I have lived in Birmingham. I will share some video instead. I heard Grace Potter was the best act on Saturday from a couple of people the following day.

OCMS


Ben Harper on Saturday


SUNDAY

The lineup on the Songwriter stage was: Elizabeth Cook, Pieta Brown, Hackensaw Boys, Shooter Jennings and Robert Earl Keen. Not one of those artists disappointed. Elizabeth Cook got it started with her country flair and Keen closed it out as you would expect with his typical Texas showmanship. However, The Hackensaw Boys may have put on the best show and they certainly picked up a bunch of fans in the Magic City.

All that being said the Flaming Lips generated the biggest buzz of the entire weekend. I ran into a couple of freinds after the festival ended and received rave reviews from them.. Amazingly enough thay weren't even that familiar with their music. Howwever, in order to see the Flaming Lips I would have needed to skip Robert Earl and that would have been sacreligious.

The Flaming Lips

More Flaming Lips: