Concert review: Best-Of highlights from Gasparilla Music Festival 2016 with Erykah Badu, Stephen Marley + more

A lot has happened over five years of Gasparilla Music Festivals, both in the broader context of the fest itself and in the lives of those of us who’ve attended it each year since its inception in 2012. From a single-day event with a mere 20 or so bands playing three stages as led by Ra Ra Riot and Lee Fields, to the two-day, five-stage, nearly 60-act extravaganza that happened this past Sat.-Sun., March 12-13 with headliners like Erykah Badu and Stephen Marley, GMF has not only grown in scope and refined its quality of offerings, but proven its sustainability in doing so and further enriched the Bay area music scene by providing first-rate local musicians with a platform to get some exposure, not to mention becoming a significant contender in the Florida festival landscape overall.

Some things have remained the same: the urge to scurry from stage to stage for fear of missing something good; the thrill of discovering a new artist or being introduced to one that was never really on your radar; the superior selection of nosh and drink options; the blithe vibes and cheerful camaraderie that pervades; and the (generally) pleasant weather — Saturday’s span of sun-seared temperatures reached 86 degrees but segued into a breezy overcast evening, while Sunday proved gusty and grayer, with the threat of rain looming all day but not actually opening up until well after the festival’s conclusion.

I soaked up the sights and sounds and have put together a Best Of compendium spotlighting highlights a la last year, paired with photos by Tracy May and Drunkcameraguy.

What did you enjoy most at GMF this year? Did you discover a new artist? Eat something unforgettable? Tell us in the comments…

Best Ushering-In of the Afternoon with Psychedelic Twang: Blitzen Trapper vs. Futurebirds
Portland quintet Blitzen Trapper and Athens, Ga.’s Futurebirds had afternoon sets scheduled at roughly the same time on the main stage Saturday and Sunday, respectively, and both laid down the score to my GMF entrance.

Blitzen Trapper did it West Coast style, all big-riffing Southern rock crunch and sunny alt-country-folk rambles with some heady instrumental stretching during a cover of The Beatles’ “Come Together” towards the end of a setlist heavy on material from their eighth and latest studio LP, 2015’s All Across This Land. I nicknamed this the “plaids plus tie dye” set solely based on the musicians’ attire.

Futurebirds delivered a more haunting, hazy brand of country-rock with definitive Pink Floyd overtones, the mournful guitar solos pealing and wailing eerily over lushly layered instrumentals by musicians who were straight-up Southern patriotic hippies.

Most Explosive MacDill Stage Set-Off: Gwan Massive
A healthy number of people made the 15-minute trek along the river to the new remote stage at MacDill Park to bounce along with local hip-hop band Gwan Massive, which filled the stage with its usual rotating cast of singers, instrumentalists and emcees, and showed why it was hand-picked to play GMF: generous, unadulterated talent packed into one explosively dynamic package.  —Marci/DCG

Best Mexi-Folk Refresher: David Wax Museum
I’ve heard a lot of buzz about David Wax Museum, an ensemble led by married duo David Wax and Suz Slezak, the former on Mexican jarana (like a large uke with six strings or mini acoustic guitar) and robust co-lead vocals that rise to balance his wife’s higher and sweeter pipings as she bows fiddle as well as juggling accordion, keys and percs, too.

Much to my delight, the pair proved as joyful and heartening as I’d hoped, synthesizing elements of Mexican son and Caribbean music in their vigorous roots-rock and folk-pop, and delivering it with much cheerful ease. Live, the buoyant material sprung and rollicked and demanded attention, especially in the celebratory “Guesthouse,” its touring lifestyle queries delivered in charming masculine-feminine harmonies over boisterous instrumentals brightened by cascading guitar melodies.

Best Bittersweet Raging of a Small-Scale Stage: Samurai Shotgun
The Bay area prog-hip-hop/Afropunk outfit hit GMF on the verge of unleashing a fresh album (Riptide), and had some big news to announce that made rumors a reality: Samurai Shotgun would be relocating to Atlanta in the next few months. This set, along with the album release party on Saturday at Crowbar, would likely be the last gigs they played before their move.

And it was an explosive rager of fat, fuzzy-buzzy basslines, hard tempo-changing rhythms and dynamic rock-outs that touched on elder material (the pensive slow-burning groove of “Escape Above”) and newer odes like the discordant propulsive “Sabertooth,” as piloted by potent spitting frontman Mateo Henley, who sported a righteous pair of kicks and wheeled from one side of that small stage to another, at one point actually climbing up onto the trusses to howl and spur on the crowd. Righteous.

Best Mobile Building: Beer Can Building
We’re not sure if it was Patrick Thorpe shuffling underneath the 10-foot-tall cloth replica of the Rivergate Tower (aka the Beer Can Building), but it damn sure looked like the same model/costume. I admire the chutzpah, especially since it was still in the 80s at that point.

Best GMF Surprise: Lucero
OK… Lucero wasn't a GMF surprise by any means to the die-hard ilk who'd been counting down the days until the outdoor romp's arrival. But for me — a last-minute festivalgoer who’d only scoped out the lineup immediately after setting up my chair in front of the main stage — the country-punk band from Memphis really was. The mix of longtime fans and first-time listeners gathered around to enjoy the gritty, twangy sounds and seemed happy to hop on raspy frontman Ben Nichols's slow, sweet, loud, energetic ride. We wanted more. —Meaghan Habuda
Best Showman: Talib Kweli
Though he’s made a point of coming to Tampa Bay several times over the past five years, I hadn’t yet experienced his raw power, dynamic stage presence or impressive performance chops until catching his set at GMF.

And man, was I ever glad I did, because it was one of my weekend highlights.

Spreading socially conscious messages while getting the crowd amped up and set off with impressive ease, Kweli hit the stage on time and performed as accompanied by a full band that was tight as hell — Chris Rob on keys and creamy lead vocals, John Cave on guitar and back-up vocals, Louis Cato on drums and bassist Brady Watt.

Talib flowed sleekly or forcefully over the hard-grooving instrumentals, throwing out one-liners and clever banter all along the way. “Give it up for yourselves, you did a wonderful job,” he commented at the end of a guys-verses-ladies audience sing-off early in the set, which also touched on a brand new track, “Radio Solids" with Waka Flocka Flame (“He’s not here,” Talib pointed out dryly), as well as the classy R&B sway of “Come Here,” with Talib laying down slick verses while Rob crooned the sexy falsetto refrain — “I don’t want to waste your time, I just want to make you come … to me.” The setlist also touched on the funk-grooving “Wait for You” (“Get while the getting is good”), along with a few covers — jazzy J. Dilla/Slum Village jam “You Know What love Is” and a highlight in a hip-hop-slamming cover of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby,” dedicated to all the single (lonely) people in the crowd. The band member intros that are usually the most tedious part of a show turned into a free-form jam sesh that found Rob taking his moment to bang out the Peanuts theme, then the ubiquitous keyboard riff from ODD “Shimmy Ya,” until Talib declared, “The bridge is over.”

That moment when you realize you left a stage in err? I had it about halfway through my walk to the far MacDill Park stage, when I was too far away to return to Kiley and Talib, but close enough to still hear it when Talib launched into the ubiquitous "Get By." I stopped and sat on a Riverwalk bench to hear it through before continuing on to the MacDill Stage.

Best All-In-One Meal: Nico’s Arepas Grill
Finding something hearty to eat at a festival when you’re attempting to practice a gluten-free lifestyle (however begrudgingly) is no easy feat, since the majority of fare offered is bread-driven (read: sandwiches). I tried Rooster & The Till’s pork belly and apple chutney with cornbread, but the pork wasn’t quite rendered, there wasn’t enough of it and the slab of cornbread was far too thick. But still, it held me over until 7 p.m. on Saturday, when I realized I was ravenous.

Enter Nico’s Arepas Grill, the food truck set up at the new MacDill Stage, where I’d arrived to see The New Deal and soon enough, discovered my new favorite food: Nico’s Beef Arepa, the flat round cornmeal patty sliced in half and stacked with shredded beef, soft and flaky white cheese, and a rich shredded chicken salad with the usual mayo base but added peas, corn, carrots, peppers and potatoes. It was an entire meal in one sandwich type thing, and I was in love. I dug it so much that I journeyed back for another one on Sunday.

Best Double-Edged Sword Mode of Travel: The Riverwalk
There was only one way to get to the MacDill stage: via Riverwalk. And while the route looked pretty short on the map, there were no shortcuts, so it proved an unexpectedly lengthy if scenic jaunt that took 15 minutes between the Curtis Hixon Stage past Kennedy and the Sheraton to MacDill Park, roughly four blocks. “This walk is insane,” I heard a fest-goer exclaim as she trudged past in the opposite direction.

Still, the stretch provided a serene break from the bustle of the main concert grounds, and there were plenty of benches to take a load off along the way. Unfortunately, the walk cut into time that could be better spent in front of a stage, which definitely decreased the amount of time I spent at the park.

Best After Hours Vibes at 7 p.m.: The New Deal
Toronto trio The New Deal brewed up a jamtronic dance party replete with saturated lights, fog and plenty of unz-unz-unz as driven by bass, drums, guitar and samplers, low-end pulses making up the meat of the electro-sonic washes, which varied from straight-ahead house-rooted dance music to heady dub-snapping odysseys that got the bodies moving in earnest arm-waving, swaying and jiving clusters. It felt more like a nightclub than a stage nestled against the Hillsborough River beneath a dark cloudy sky.

Best Afrika '70 Channelers: Antibalas
I’d been looking forward to checking out this performance since the fest was announced, and the Brooklyn ensemble did not disappoint, laying down their Fela Kuti-inspired ‘70s vintage Afrobeat soaked in elements of funk, jazz and dub about 40 minutes later than scheduled but making up for it with much tight prowess once the 13 or so instrumentalists filtered onto the stage.

Fiercely playful Nigerian-British vocalist/conga player Duke Amaya led the percussive-fueled charge, commenting that playing the Afrobeat Orchestra’s tropical music up north “is like serving beer or wine at the wrong temperature — it just feels wrong” amid delivering exotic bilingual vocals and executing epic martial arts-inspired dance moves clad in a white quasi-Elvis-style jumpsuit/two-piece ensemble that glittered with fake jewels and thread embellishments, and adding his pounding conga chops to the propulsive blend of guitars that varied from wet wah-wah textures to more gritty grinding riffage, heavy funked-out basslines and chugging and slinking rhythms, all of it washed in percussion and driven by bright, urgent brass from a many-piece section.  

Bari sax player and band founder Martin Perna took the mic to get political for a moment, stressing the importance of voting against fracking coming to Florida, before the band finished the set.

Most Anti-Climactic Entrance by a Bonafide Diva: Erykah Badu
She was late, but this came as no surprise; Erykah Badu is notorious for it. By the time the R&B/neo-soul/hip-hop songstress made her rather anticlimactic entrance to the grooves of her live band and without a word launched into “20 Feet Tall,” it was 10:07 p.m.

She was fresh off a plane but you wouldn’t know it by her appearance — clad in oversized red plaid shirt, leather jacket, leather pants, hair floating in a relaxed Afro fluff around her cute pixie face — nor from the pristine quality of her vocals, which soared sultry, jazzy-rich and pure into the cool night air as she cycled through a setlist of cuts spanning her five LPs, among them, the jazz-hued torch song that is “Out My Mind, Just In Time,” the playfully nostalgic “Back in the Day (Puff),” elder grooving favorites “Appletree" and “On and On” (which earned some excited cheers), “Otherside of the Game,” and a rather energetic “Danger” that prompted some serious dancing.

They let Badu and Co. run well past their scheduled 10:30 end, but by 11:15 p.m., the nine-hour day had finally caught up to me and I was forced to slog out, with the sweet caress of “Soldier” following me to my car.

Most Bombastic Bowie Segue into a Proposal: Poetry n’ Lotion
A more languid Sunday found a much-anticipated highlight in Poetry n’ Lotion paying off. The local fusion outfit debuted newest member Jonathan Miller for the occasion, and his sax added an extra boost of brass to the trumpet-trombone section. They culled material off both LPs (Kentucky Monkey and Electric Acres), including the upbeat island-bright "Aah Ha" and the more urgent "Sweet Relish" with its jazzy interludes, along with several trademark covers touching on funk-jazz (Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man”), metal (Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”) and classic rock (“She’s So Heavy (I Want You)" by The Beatles).

The best part, however, was a set-ending performance of David Bowie’s “Be My Wife,” which found trumpeter Kenny Pullen assuming lead vocals, already an unexpected turn since the band is mostly instrumental, then pulling out a ring to propose to girlfriend (now fiancé) Nancy Castro during the refrain: “Please be mine, share my life, stay with me, be my wife.”

A perfect end to the PNL set — which was not, in fact, their last performance ever despite Matt E. Lee's move to NYC, but their last performance for now.

Best Sunday Supper: Greensky Bluegrass
Michigan Americana group Greensky Bluegrass played like it was the reason the weather was holding. The crowd that survived Day 1 of GMF and returned for the music on Sunday were treated to string-picked and plucked sounds that were as perfect for lounging back while tapping your toes as it was for getting up and dancing around. — Marci/DCG

Most Appropriate Nickname: Charles Bradley
The Screaming Eagle of Soul showed exactly why he got his nickmae with a hot and soul-stirring set at GMF, his clothing — red slacks and suit jacket with a big white star on its back, black dress shirt — as loud as the belting, bellowing and howling odes he sang. This man’s voice was made to sing songs of pain and yearning — raw, scratchy from the brine of years, and perfect for singing lines like “They don’t see me cry” and “You’re killing me” with utmost conviction.
Best Love Fest: Stephen Ragga Marley
It didn’t feel like there was any better way to end such a fantastic weekend than when Stephen Marley and his band hit the stage and started spreading love, peace and posi feel-good vibes, lifting everyone's tired spirits at the end of our long weekend with sounds so infectious that the whole place was smiling, waving arms and bouncing in jubilation only a few minutes into the set that kicked off with "Lively Up Yourself."

I didn’t recognize his original material, but me and everyone in attendance (and some folks who were dancing around outside the venue) were familiar with his dad’s odes (including "Is This Love?" "One Love" and "Three Little Birds"), and that’s what kept the place dancing and bouncing through the fests’s triumphant conclusion.

Check out more photos below…

This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2016.