Damn, you shoulda been there—maybe you were—when cosmic-jazz legend Sun Ra paraded his 20-member Arkestra through the crowd in the Cuban Club Courtyard, when NRBQ played a set that was raucous, funny and musical all at once, when the crowd pelted local punk band Joe Popp with marshmallows in the stuffy Cuban Club basement, when Trombone Shorty ignited a Nawlins dance party. All of this happened at the Tropical Heatwave, a 35-year festival produced by public radio station WMNF-88.5 FM.
As part of our 30th anniversary Best of the Bay, Creative Loafing Tampa Bay honors the legendary local festival, and laments its demise in 2016. At the same time, we celebrate the continued success of Gasparilla Music Festival, which launched in 2012 and managed to get this year’s in on March 7-8, just under the COVID-19 wire.
Over its three-and-half decades, Tropical Heatwave presented hundreds and hundreds of acts in every genre imaginable. The event prompted people all over the Bay area to circle the date on their calendars—not just hippies, punks, music geeks and ‘MNF listeners, but suburbanites in polo shirts and tennis shorts. Heatwave provided so many people with so many good times that it’s hard to quantify its impact. Let’s call it: fuckin’ HUUUGE.
It started as a fundraiser for the nascent public radio station. A New Personality, The Voodoo Idols, Zenith Nadir, The Backbeats, The Fallopian Tubes and Your Relatives—all local bands—played the first Heatwave; 2,000 people showed up, and had a blast. The concert/party raised about $10,000, a considerable sum for an upstart radio station on the low end of the dial.
In 1992, Heatwave, which had limited its ticket sales for a few years due to outsized demand, enlarged its footprint to include the adjacent El Pasaje Plaza. The following year, WMNF expanded the festival to two nights, which lasted until 1996. Ybor City mania in the late ‘90s almost pushed Heatwave out of Tampa’s Latin quarter, but the station persisted. In 2005, with tickets priced at $30 (compared to $7 for the first one), the station amassed more than $50,000 for its coffers.
WMNF personnel produced Heatwave, and the station absorbed all the costs. The event was 88.5’s primary fundraiser for many years. Then the national festival scene heated up, corporate promoters got into the game, acts started demanding higher fees, and Heatwave gradually became a money pit. Near the end, costs ran to $100,000. One year, ‘MNF lost $40K.
Things got dicey for Heatwave’s last hurrah. WMNF announced that the 35th annual would take place Saturday, April 30, 2016. Meanwhile, corporate promoter AEG booked Alabama Shakes into the Cuban Club for April 29. When that date was announced in January, WMNF staff said they were taken by surprise, while the Cuban Club’s president, Patrick Manteiga, claimed he’d kept the station in the loop all along.
WMNF felt that Alabama Shakes, red hot at the time, would siphon off too many ticket sales from Heatwave. Rather than cancel, the listener-sponsored station moved its shows into eight clubs in Ybor City, hoping to create a SXSW vibe. Whether vacating the Cuban Club proved to be the last spike in Heatwave’s coffin is hard to say, but it surely didn’t help.
The festival’s luster had faded some anyway. Heatwave had always done its best to be inclusive, but in later years it was largely the baby boomer set that sustained it. And perhaps without being aware, the graying WMNF braintrust booked acts appealing to a graying crowd—nothing stupid like a Stones tribute act, but alt music that skewed older. Boomers, some of whom had been to 20, 25 Heatwaves, started to peel off. Fewer and fewer folks circled their calendars and counted down the days.
It’s tempting to say that Tropical Heatwave handed the local-festival baton to Gasparilla Music Festival, but GMF actually had a hand in Heatwave’s demise. Better funded, with the local corporate sponsorships that WMNF resisted, the downtown Tampa fest got off to a solid start in 2012. It was new and shiny, and had more appeal to a young audience. GMF was yet another entry into a crowded festival field, and ultimately Heatwave could not compete.
GMF has grown steadily. Its programming is eclectic, but the main-stage headliners have higher-than-Heatwave profiles—they include The Flaming Lips, Brandi Carlile, Portugal. The Man, Ryan Adams, Cage the Elephant and Modest Mouse. In 2018, Austin rock band Spoon turned in a triumphant set, despite performing in the rain. Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. (now JR JR) transfixed an audience at one of the smaller stages, word spread around the venue and the lawn was packed by the time the band packed it in. The Beths wowed the crowd with their infectious pop-punk. GMF, which is run by the nonprofit Gasparilla Music Foundation, always makes ample room for local acts.
Set on the riverfront on several stages in Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park and Kiley Gardens Park, the festival lacks the boho charm and intimacy of Heatwave’s Ybor City digs, but it is roomy and allows large crowds to easily flow from one stage to another. Beer stations are spread around the grounds and lines are rarely long. A promenade of food vendors provides a wide array of choices, from hefty Cuban sandwiches to several vegan-friendly options.
In the first week of March, as coronavirus news was becoming more alarming, the GMF drink servers wore gloves and there were hand-sanitizing stations scattered around the parks (face masks were several weeks from being in vogue). Fear of the impending pandemic appeared to have hurt attendance, but did not ring a death knell. With purported virus vaccines on the horizon, one can cautiously forecast that GMF 2021 will go on as scheduled in the second week of March. And if we’re really fortunate, fans will be able to attend without face coverings. Let’s hope.
In the end, it’s a shame that Tropical Heatwave folded, but 35 years is a remarkable, and improbable, run. Here’s to hoping that GMF can come close to matching that longevity.
See all winners from Best of the Bay 2020.
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This article appears in Best of the Bay 2020.