Lindley Park is verdant; rolling down from the old town cemetery and ending in a hollow, it is bordered by the public library and bathed in shade. It’s the site of the weekly farmers market, and the site of a small-town music festival. The park is divided by Buttonwood Ave, the road which leads to the cemetery. Walking up Buttonwood from Main St. you’ll find the festival arts fair to you left, food vendors on the right, and the main stage on the hill behind them.
The three-day event is directly comparable to the Shakori Hills Grassroot Festival. Sweet Pea is smaller in area and scope, of the four stages only one is dedicated to music – the other three are reserved for Dance, Theater, and Family (which if your family is anything like mine you certainly don’t want to see it on stage, but that’s probably not what this is about). The proceeds go to funding local arts programs according to the website and in spite of its noble intentions the festival is not without controversy.
The direct cause of the local distaste for the festival – which has something to do with charging for admission, a respectful $25 for three days (though it was previously much more I’m told), and a judge panel to determine which artists will be present effectively excluding some community members and artists – was so strong as to birth a rival festival to take place on the same weekend!
SLAM (which takes place in Bogart Park, less than half a mile away) exists to promote the arts “in a manner that enriches and involves the community” whereas the Pea Festival, as one of my co-workers delightful called it in a lapse of memory, exists to simply ‘Promote the Arts’. How crass. Whether there is more conflict surrounding these festivals is unclear, and as a matter of principal, the local paper states there is no controversy. They are meant to ‘Complement’ one another.
In the Sweet Pea program, a single inconspicuous line, in 9 pt. font, states that ‘Sweet Pea is Proud to Financially Support SLAM’. The conflict really appears to be about who the festival is for. Is it a festival that represents the town and local artists or is it a hollow commercial attempt to commodify the arts to cater to an outside crowd? A wealthy outside crowd in particular.
As ‘super gentrification’ (I.e the condition where even the gentry cannot afford housing) vapidly changes the culture of the small college town, there is considerable disapproval for the growth straining the local infrastructure and the new coastal bourgeoisie. An incorrigible man, devoted to principles, who supports local arts in effacement of their own interests and tastes, would denounce the Pea Festival! And she would abstain from attendance! That is if you buy into the dichotomy.
Sweet Pea, in its’ current iteration, is at its’ core a music festival. As an outsider, corrigible, heretical, and despicably yielding to the demands of a market economy, I can’t deny that I’m excited to see Houndmouth on Sunday, and Black Joe Lewis on Saturday, and 25$ is a more than reasonable admission considering that there were over a dozen other performances also supported by festival admissions.
Besides, I haven’t the disposable income to support my taste in art anyway, so I might as well enjoy the music. The Saturday at sweet pea was rained out until mid-afternoon. Western monsoon season has arrived and after a week of scorching heat that excited fires across the west the weather turned cool with a jolt. It rained on and off for nearly 12 hours and the temperature dipped below 50 overnight. The Family stage was cancelled almost entirely, as were the dances and theater performance.
But the show must go on as Kiltro was still intending to begin on schedule. Music is the unquestionable heart of this festival, but it may be that flowers are the soul. The present iteration of the festival claims to middle aged, starting officially in 1987. Happy 45th birthday.
But in an understated and unadvertised tent in the fair there is a flower competition, along with a small exhibit from the Gallatin County Historical Society. It features photos of the 1911 Sweet Pea Carnival. One is a portrait of young boy, unquestionably of a family with aristocratic tendency, wreathed by a robe of delicate, orchid like flowers (Sweet Peas).
There are women holding bouquets of them, and a wagon ensconced with them. The present exhibit disappoints the imagination when considering the boundless excess of flowers that must have been grown and present in the turn of the century fairs.
The original carnival ran from 1906-1916, according to the Museum of the Rockies, brought down by the ire of war and a lack of conviction in the economic benefit of the festival. It was launched as an attempt by the commercial club to make the town more attractive to a potential beet processing facility, a commercial center in general, and amid a surge of flower festival in Montana at the turn of the century. What disgusting commercialism! I went back to the lawn to wait for the music.
Kiltro began half an hour later than advertised, perhaps waiting for the first appearance of the sun, maybe just assembling the stage again after the rain. They are the smallest act of the day on the main stage, a young band out of Denver, CO hanging out in the amorphous genre of Indie Rock, subgenre guitar looping.
They began their set with just one dancer, a small boy of 9. He stood on the lower post of the fence between the grassy pit on the stage, gently rocking it as he thrashed on it in excitement, occasionally trying to lift himself over. If a grown man had behaved in such a manor a burly security guard would have picked him up by the scruff of his neck and hauled him out of sight. No one acknowledged the small boys’ antics, and he was joined first by a mass of small children, and eventually those brave first souls needed to get a proper pit started.
Easy rhythms, silky guitar riffs, and gentle vocals bloomed into a svelte vibe as their set progressed, not unlike that of Whitney (albeit less polished). The music comes from a mix of cultural influences, with Chilean band leader Chris Bowers Castillo introducing elements of Latin-American folk and recent edition Ben H. Allen III. (of Animal Collective) bringing in a more psychedelic resonance to the bands sound. They were not the primary draw, and their crowd was small but content, and I was delighted by their performance.
A set change ensued at the end of their performance, (and a trip to the beer garden for myself) before Kaleta and Super Yamba Band took the stage. Formed in NYC, Super Yamba carries the mantle of afro beat in the 21st century. Kaleta, the bands front man, got his start in the 70s and touring with the legendary Fela Kuti as guitarist in his band Egypt 80.
Two of their songs were featured in High Fidelity, and while I was not personally familiar with their work all indications made them something to get excited about. Sadly, they didn’t receive their fair share of stage time, to perform or sound check for that matter, leaving the mix just a little off.
The trumpet was often startling loud in comparison to the rest of the mix, and the set was marked with unfortunate squeaks and blow outs that kept the band from hitting their groove. They never achieved a high degree of crowd engagement. I hope I get another chance to see them, because this set did them no justice.
After another break (and another visit to the garden), Black Joe Lewis & The Honeycutters, emerged. They play blues rock in the vein of the Black Keys, that hits a little harder at times, and gets a little funky at others. Based in Austin, TX. the band brings the heat with them.
The guitars, which come across as a blues rock on the album, screamed more like metal in the evening air, the drums pounded the day towards its end, and the horns steered clear of it all. Lead guitarist, vocalist, and front man Lewis who’s exalted yells would shred the vocal cords of a normal man, became visibly shy when it was time to play their hit ‘Bitch, I love you’ biting off the first word.
The children made up a considerable portion of the pit still, and a countless portion of the crowd seated on the lawn. The crowd, seated and standing loved it regardless. The excitement, and standing crowd swelled throughout the set and if there hadn’t been so many children present, they may have begun to mosh.
The set continued on, and while there were no encores that day, Lewis claimed last song twice, before checking with the organizers to find out he had 10 more minutes which was embraced with a cheer.
By now the end of Black Joe Lewis’ set the sun was below the tree line, and after 5 hours of music in the sun I was tiring. Another set change ensued, and some white-haired men began taking the stage. Railroad Earth, a band which I will be incapable of giving due justice, and which I am sure has received its share of reviews in the past 30 years of music making and touring came to the stage and were greeted by the largest crowd of the night.
They took the prime slot of the festival, going on at 8 pm Saturday and rightly so, as they appeared to be the town favorite. Bozeman, despite all the costal transplants, remains western at heart. It’s a 5-piece string band, supported by drums and a key board bringing their stage presence to 7 total, and described by my roommate as an ultimate Jam Band.
Rightly so, as songs were punctuated with solos and breakouts from the various performers, accentuated by the white lights from above making their first appearance in the low day light, lasted for a minimum of 5 minutes and merrily ran into 10. Sometimes it was the fiddler Time Carbone, running up and down the neck like a cool sweat. Then it was the keyboard, then Jon Skehan on mandolin, then the guitar, and whenever other instrument fell silent the bassist Andrew Altman would walk on, winding through the night like the rivers that abound in the hills around town.
On tour in memory of Adam Goessling, one of their founding members for whom their most recent album is dedicated, their set was blissful and content, as one is when they have lived a full life. The standing crowd was still growing when I left, the darkness of the brisk night calling me to bed. Whether the total number of viewers changed was impossible to judge, who knows how many of those lazy lawn lovers decided to leave as opposed to stand and celebrate the end of the night.
On Sunday, featuring indisputably perfect blue sky and fine weather, I found a gift for my mother at the art fair. A pair of iridescent earrings, for her birthday which she celebrated while I was away. The music started again at noon with a local band but I couldn’t bring myself out of the house for the set. It was my last day in Bozeman, and I knew what I wanted.
I joined the pit early, like the teens and in-betweens that were excited for the main Gen-Z attraction. The crowd was definitely not the youngest it had been, as the children were occupied by a craft event where they were melodically hammering away the afternoon in a shady grove, but it was represented mostly by that age group coveted by social media and advertisers, 18-30. I would think that Houndmouth falls in there, if only just.
They’re on tour for their most recent album “Good For You’, which is understated to the point its almost flat on Spotify. It’s too easy listening, but only after seeing it live. Alternative rock is how Houndmouth is often identified but they are nothing short of Rocked, plain and simple in their performance Sunday.
On tour as a classic quartet, keyboard, drums, guitar and bass they were absolutely a joy; no one else looked like they had as much fun on stage as Houndmouth did. They were undoubted professionals in their class, which is perhaps why their album came across feeling a little colder than cool in the studio recording.
Matt Myers, who broke his 5th amp during the performance, sang like the wind blows through leaves, and soloed like an honest to goodness rockstar. Caleb Hickman (keyboard), Zak Appleby (bass), and Shane Cody (drums) joined in for seductive 4-part harmonies and brought the stage to life. Shane sang with a jaded heart and made the drums feel alive on songs from an album where they feel like a machine. They even timed it right to create arbitrary encore, which Myers opened alone, and which they closed with the chart-topping, crowd-pleasing hit ‘Sedona’ for which they are known. Afterwards they mingled with fans for a while in the afternoon sun, living out the musical euphoria just a little while longer.
Sweet Pea is a music festival, first and foremost, and shouldn’t be missed if you’re in Bozeman during the first week of August. Its your best chance to hear something other than western whatever while in town, but it might be a bit excessive to make the journey for the festival alone. But it you plan to bathe in the wilderness that surrounds town and embrace the outdoors with devotion for a while, why not time the trip to enjoy some music too.
