Pulling into Ybor City a little before 8:30 p.m. on Saturday night, it was hard to tell that a district-wide Halloween party had already been occurring for the past few hours. Guavaween was experiencing the first year of its transformation from out-of-control shitshow-in-the-streets to a music-oriented festival, and as a consequence, the traffic getting in was nonexistent (at least when we arrived), parking was a piece of cake, and most noticeable of all, we weren't faced with vendors hawking alcohol every block or bombarded by masses of costumed locals sloppy and stumbling in the closed-down streets, because the fence was gone and the wet zoning laws along with it. [Photos by Phil, text by Leilani and Andrew where noted; click here a photo overview of the event by Chip Weiner.]
There were still plenty of stumbling drunkards (Ybor attracts them like flies) and the Guavaween regulars were still ready for some outrageous revelry, fence or no. The crowds grew much thicker and the atmosphere a great deal rowdier as the night wore on, but what was happening on the sidewalks outside didn't reflect what was happening inside the venues. Maybe these people were clueless about the indoor live music aspect of the fest, or they didn't want to pay the admission, or they just didn't care, but whatever their reasons, they milled about on the sidewalks and made getting from venue to venue take twice as long as it should have. Here's a brief breakdown of my evening, with a few check-ins by Andrew Silverstein…
Beach Day, The Ritz Ybor, 8:30ish We started our evening at the Ritz Ybor's Royal Room stage with Beach Day, a Hollywood, Fla. trio (two girls and a guy) signed to Kanine Records in June and enjoying a hard buzz over the past few months that has included write-ups by Brooklyn Vegan and Elle magazine. Their music is '60s surf-sprayed garage pop of the sort that's oversaturating the indie airwaves these days, marked by retro girl group vocals as delivered by honey-toned singer and guitarist Kimmy Drake with light back-up harmonies by bassist Natalie Smallish. They were quite darling and I wish I would say I was dazzled but I just wasn't that into it. —LP
Saskatchewan, Crowbar, 8:55 p.m. My reasoning for seeing the Orlando dream pop band, again, was that there really wasn't much else happening right at that particular moment, I hadn't quite gotten into my stage-to-stage groove yet, the wig I was wearing was squeezing my brain, and Crowbar is like my venue-away-from-home, so we hit the venue as much for a respite as to see a band we really like. Sadly, it was rather empty — there were maybe 40 people there at that point — so we had a drink and figured out our next stop, which ended up being Centro Ybor for a rather long and tedious Guavaween Costume Contest. Despite there being some real winners, the losers ultimately drove me away to New World, where I stopped to catch a few minutes of a band that's been blowing up in the past six weeks — King Tuff. —LP
King Tuff, New World Brewery, 9:45 p.m. Guavaween at New World Brewery was hardly discernable from any random show night at the venue. Aside from a slew of tame costumes and thick orange wristbands, you'd be hard pressed to guess that the fest was actually happening. Not that it really mattered to King Tuff, the moniker of Vermont songwriter Kyle Thomas and his scuzzed out (and heavily moustached) four-man band. Tuff's deliberately low-grade garage rock blasted through New World's P.A. at an eardrum-shredding level as they played through a handful of tracks from Tuff's eponymous debut. They run the gamut from breezy sha-na-na-type numbers to arena crushing rock and, as a first time witness, it was beautiful. —Andrew Silverstein
Burger Break, Tampa Bay Brewing Company, 10:10 p.m. Yes, I'll admit, I was ravenous and my base urges overrode my need to see music, so I only made it through a few songs of Kind Tuff before I could no longer ignore the gnawing pain in my belly or the feeling that I might fall over if I didn't get some fuel, stat. Burgers were dancing behind my eyes, so we headed towards Tampa Bay Brewing Company, passed by Distinguished Gentlemen of Brass performing their choreographed horn-fused funk hop pop, and after realizing all the tables outside were taken, grabbed a snug booth indoors. Though there weren't a huge amount of people there and certainly not approaching what the restaurant would get on a normal Saturday night as our waitress pointed out, but she also mentioned there were far more diners here than the place had ever gotten at past Guavaweens, which before this year stood at zero. —LP
The Wholetones, 11:15 P.M., New World Brewery After our meal, we returned to New World to digest and enjoy a quick acoustic music break with The Wholetones. The Naples foursome comes through town reguarly, their tight musicality on full display in aggro roots music they've dubbed 'folkcore' that touches on jazz, bluegrass, indie rock, reggae and metal. These guys do not disappoint; ostensible frontman Taylor Freydberg plays a mean acoustic guitar and sings in a lower-register hum with higher-toned vocal harmonies delivered by Alex Dorris, who also jumps between nimble-fingered banjo thrashing and drawing out wailing notes or fast-slashing spicatto on cello. Russ Depa plucks and thumps his upright bass with laid-back prowess and drummer Mayo Coates brings it home with lightly driving or heavy-charging rhythmic thrust. They have plenty of original material but also throw in the odd covers (like the one they played by Modest Mouse on this night). —LP
The Hold Steady, The Ritz Ybor, 10:50 p.m. My troupe made its way over to The Ritz for Guavween's headlining performance from The Hold Steady. The attendance was better than New World's, but was still rather low than you'd normally see at the place, which was barely half-full. Naturally, Craig Finn and company put their all into the set as if the place was packed, working through around 90 minutes worth of both older and enticingly new numbers ("Wait Awhile," "Records and Tapes" and an untitled track) that seem par for the course for their anthematic, blue-collar sound. Sans abso-fucking-lutely awesome keyboardist/accordion rager Franz Nicolay, though, songs like "Southtown Girls," "Hot Soft Light" and anything off Boys and Girls in America sounded noticeably sparse and stunted at times. Even so, these guys are well-versed in no-bullshit, high-energy, and ultimately positive rock shows, and that's all I needed to close my night at Guavaween. —AS
Seventh Avenue Wander, 11:30 p.m. We made a quick jaunt to check out the Hold Steady, then tried to see dance jam outfit Rubblebucket at Czar, but Tortured Soul was just breaking down when we arrived, so we made our way down Seventh Avenue through the throngs of people, cars lined up bumper to bumper, Boba Fett passengers and vampire drivers, mad hatters dancing on the curb, crazy Christians proselytizing with oversized signs and bullhorn lectures in the midst of it all. It really was still a zoo, if one no longer contained by a fence. We also managed to miss The Same at Market on 7th, so decided it was time to make our way to our final destination: Adrian Younge.
Adrian Younge, Orpheum, Midnight. Adrian Younge's band hit the stage late, taking their places one by one, and performing to a small crowd of a hundred or so people at Orpheum, despite the milling crowds outside, and delivered another hot-as-shit set of hard, heavy-hitting psychedelic soul and blaxspoitation funk with vintage R&B and spaghetti western interludes, all members sporting dark suits and crimson shirts and bowties quickly shed in favor of unbuttoned collars and in Younge's case by the end of the night, complete bare-chested glory. Younge lost his sax on the flight to Tampa, but still commanded bass and keys, which he traded off as per usual with cool cat musician C.E. Garcia. Vocalist Loren Oden hit those high notes and mesmerized, elder guitarist Jack Waterson aped and posed and soloed with overzealous finesse while second guitarist Alfredo Fratti calmly did his thing and subbed on flute amid the wash of sound. I could go on and on, but I've did that already the last time Younge was here and there's only so much a girl can gush. Suffice to say, Younge and his band are un-fucking-believable and I left Orpheum with a shit-eating grin on my face.
On our stroll out, we stopped and watched Justin Fedor jam on mandolin with upbeat Americana rocking N.C. four-piece The New Familiars at New World Brewery, then made our way back to the car and finally, home.
By and large, I had a good time. It was nice to see the fences down and mayhem diminished. People still showed up en masse to practice the Guavaween tradition, though not having to pay to get through the fence didn't mean these people were suddenly enlightened about the music festival. If anything, they seemed cut adrift, aimless, like they weren't exactly sure where to go or what to do, and there wasn't a huge amount of signage indicating their options. And while the wristband paid for admission to six venues, I saw a few people decide against it because the place they were meeting their friends "wasn't on the map." What happened to all the other clubs, bars, restaurants, cafes and coffee shops that make up the Ybor landscape? Some of these places seemed to be doing better business than the venues actively taking part in Guavaween; throngs of people were lined up outside Prana, Amphthitheatre and Skye as per usual on a Saturday night, and a mass of bodies spilled out of The Bricks, too. Clearly, organizers still have to work out all the kinks, maybe start planning it earlier next year to get more Ybor businesses involved and book bigger, better and wider ranging talent to appeal to more attendees — but Guavaween 2012 definitely proved a big step in the right direction and I can't wait to see what's in store for 2013.
This article appears in Nov 1-7, 2012.