It’s safe to say that the Hopscotch Music Festival is in many ways a musical Christmas for North Carolina music fanatics. Thus, the lead up to this third installment was certainly intense excitement. Thursday night officially kicked things off with a slew of excellent performers that it was hard to make decisions on where to be. However, I think I made some of the best choices with the seven shows I attended.
My first stop on the Hopscotch train was the beautiful and spacious Fletcher Opera Theater to catch Megafaun member and folk extraordinaire, Phil Cook and His Feat. The quiet and seated performance space provided an excellent showcase of his lush instrumental folk numbers and was a nice and easy way to begin an evening of fast-paced show hopping.
My Hopscotch buds and I made a stop at Deep South the Bar to catch a few rocking songs by Chapel Hill’s Some Army but soon made a beeline to catch the Chapel Hill band we were all excited to see—“Gross Ghost “:http://grossghost.bandcamp.com/at the Berkeley Cafe.
Once there, I was hoping to catch the tailend of Airstrip too, but just missed them (sometimes you face disappoints at Hopscotch). And although I have seen Gross Ghost a handful of times, this show was just as impressive. The band performed several new tracks and definitely had me singing along for the entirety of the set with its infectious garage pop-rock.
Next up it was a quick run through some diverse female-fronted bands, starting with Boy Friend, a dream pop group whose floaty tunes were the exact opposite of the next stop. Next it was time to stop at the Lincoln Theatre for Screaming Females, whose front woman Marissa Paternoster is most certainly the biggest badass I’ve seen in a while. The extremes continued with the next performance at the Long View Center (a church!), where quirky and beautiful songstress Julia Holter entranced the entire audience.
I ended my night with an old favorite, Roman Candle, who used to call Chapel Hill home. Southern rock infused with indie pop and a lick of country, it’s been a while since they’ve released anything and hearing a few fresh tracks certainly made it worthy to finish off the night’s music marathon around Raleigh.
And that’s just the beginning. From a look at the schedule, nights two and three are shaping up to be just as electric. There’s also too many FREE day parties to count spread all around the downtown area. It isn’t going to be hard to find something great and fully enjoy your weekend here.
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