So far, Gasparilla Music Festival has managed to fall on one of the most pristine weekends of the year, right as the weather is on the verge of turning from mild to overwarm and the humidity hasn’t yet saturated the air. Saturday dawned cool and overcast with refreshing breezes before the rays broke through to an afternoon that became toasty, eventually dropping to nippy temperatures as the skies deepened to a velvety navy. Sunday proved downright hot, with few too clouds to be seen and a blazing sun that reminded everyone of the oppressive season ahead.
Every year, my writers and I have reported back here about our experiences, offering a giant comprehensive summary of the fest from start to finish. This year, we’ve taken a different approach with a breakdown of highlights, delivered Best Of style and paired with a big ol’ bunch of photos.
What were some of your Best ofs at GMF 2015? Tell us in the comments…
Best Foreshadowing of the Weekend to Come: GMF Welcome Sign A long orange banner hanging at the entrance of the fest proclaimed, “No worries beyond this point,” putting attendees at ease from the get-go. —AS
Best Saturday Entrance Music: The Hip Abduction Nothing much better than the St. Pete collective’s sun-splashed Afro-flavored world rock and easy, funky reggae grooves to usher in the early afternoon sounds. —LP
Best Use of Space: The Curtis Hixon Slab That slab of concrete in the middle of the great lawn? Perfect for hosting mini between-set performances. We saw Wax Wings do a few finely-wrought roots tunes and some energetic cavorting by a troupe of African dancers and drummers. —LP
Best Way to Inspire Musical Kids: Kids Fest Kid-friendly acts played three stages early on both days, admission was free for evyerone 12 and younger, and a large shaded area featured with instruments for kids to play with or make musically-centric crafts, like maracas. —DCG
Fest Amenity Most in Need of Re-Evaluating for a 10k (Sold Out) Fest: The Bathroom Situation. I waited to use a Port-o-Potty for about 20 minutes, while others in my group were MIA for upwards of a half-hour waiting in lines that snaked and stretched in long unhappy throngs of people. This was a non-issue on Sunday, but could have proved a problem had both days of GMF been sell-outs.—LP
Best White Dudes Meet Afro-Soul/Most Baddass Bassist: Budos Band It’s not often than a nine-piece instrumental ensemble can evoke Fela Kutí, Black Sabbath, Queens of the Stone Age and Ennio Morricone, simultaneously, while still grooving hard on their own original sounds. Heavy-driving basslines by a player who displayed as much prowess as you’d see from a lead guitarist (and whose entertaining posturing including much upright playing on his electric instrument and so much thrashing his top knot came loose only a few songs deep), globally-inspired percussion, Afro-style Korg keys and a wailing two-piece bari sax and trumpet assault that gave it all a rather dramatic feel and made us want to bang our heads and shimmy our shakes, all at once. —AS & LP
Most Original Band: The Porch Sessions The Tampa band thrilled early festival comers, who packed the auditorium to hear their innovative instrumentals. —DCG
Most unexpected Grateful Dead Revival: Hiss Golden Messenger The North Carolina-brewed folk-rock ensemble led by MC Taylor and Scott Hirsch had definite country rambling, bluesy R&B tendencies, and they played a song that sounded so much like “Franklin’s Tower” by The Grateful Dead that my crew and I actually thought it was a cover, and sang along with the Dead’s chorus (“Roll away, the dew”) before realizing our err. Further research has proved this song “Lucia.” Similar chord progression, same tempo, with added twang by way of the brassy-nasal intones of Taylor. —LP
Greatest Variety of Black Tees on One Stage: Miggs —DCG
Most Inappropropriately Dressed: (Mostly) Naked Chick
She frolicked through the crowd in a long white wig and tiny boy shorts, topless save for red hearts that were painted on her nipples. It was 4 in the afternoon and there were a ton of kids around. We only saw her once, so assumed (hoped) she was wrangled by someone. —LP
Hottest EmCee: Andre Jones Florida Night Heat’s bass-banger and ostensible frontman covered his cinnamon sugar Buddha belly in the flyest of tuxedo jackets. Never has a man owned more swagger in baby blue. —AS
Best Improvement: Main Stage Video Screen Set up behind the soundboard — essentially a big sight obstacle anyway — organizers erected a giant video screen that featured all the action as it played out on the mainstage. It made lounging on the far lawn far more enticing, not to mention visually convenient. —LP
Best Last Minute Addition: Saskatchewan The Orlando ensemble replaced Amber Lynn Nichol — who canceled only a few days before the fest — with a dreamy chill-wave vibe that proved the perfect complement to Saturday’s idyllic weather. They filled Tibbett’s Square with gently swaying fans. —DCG
Most Disappointing Festival Showing: Mutemath Playing a festival set isn’t rocket science. You have roughly an hour to win over the crowd. Some of the people in it may know who you are but likely many of them do not. So you plan a setlist that stays mostly upbeat — you open loud and strong, potentially with something everyone wants to hear, follow it with another loud and fast something-everyone-wants-to-hear, get that crowd jacked up on adrenaline … and THEN unleash your new material, when the crowd is most susceptible and amenable to receiving it, or at least excited enough to fake it. This is especially important when you haven’t released any new music in more than four years, you don’t have any new singles out, and you hit the stage several minutes late.
Hello, Mutemath, I'm talking to you.
The bands Tampa debut was a rather disappointing one, and this coming from a fan of the band. The set opener was one that nobody seemed to know, a rather uninspired dance number that continued on in the same vein with the next unfamiliar tune. When Mutemath finally launched into the normally ass kick-kicking rock of “Blood Pressure,” it had been transformed into a spacier more electro-driven number minus its distinctive guitar riff. You know, the riff that makes its recognizable? I am all for changing it up but removing an essential component to a song is not the way to do it. There's a reason the majority of the crowd was standing still and staring at the stage like dumbfounded zombies...
By the time Mutemath launched into a more straightforward rocked-out version of a personal favorite, “Prytania,” it was too late; I'd already lost interest and was following my own Do's and Don'ts advice, bailing on something I wanted to see due to disappointment so that I could find something else that didn’t make me want to bitch and moan like a child. Luckily, the negative experience led to one of the most fun and uplifting ones ones of the night, and by a band I’d seen on a few occasions already… —LP
Best Funkin’ Dance Party with a One-Two Punch Set Closer: Dumpstaphunk No other band seemed to tear the stage apart quite like the Ivan Neville-fronted Dumpstaphunk, ushering in the evening and plowing through the audience with Jaco Pastorius low-end dual-bass reverberations; sweet soulful vocal harmonies, and fluid guitar licks. Every musician on stage had stank face at one point, that particular demon-exorcising expression that comes on when executing a riff that makes the poor folks lose their minds. The New Orleans outfit closed with a heavy one-two punch of awesomeness, delivering a funked-up version of Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On” before launching into the set-closing ass-shake-inducing “Put It in the Dumpsta,” aka “The Cleansing,” which prompted a frenzy of dancing right up to the very end of their spirited set.—AS & LP
Sweetest First Show in the FLA: Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. "Bout’ fucking time we came here, right?” Daniel Zott asked. No Beatles-loving flower-crown princess could resist the sweet lyrics and utterly feminine vibe of “Simple Girl,” while the looping melodies and Roxy Music-like “James Dean” had bodies rocking and swaying to its deliciously deliberate beats. —AS
Best Worth the Price of Admission/Best Expectations Met: Modest Mouse Wayne Coyne could learn a thing or two from Isaac Brock — when it comes to closing festivals, anyway.
Even coming onto the stage 25 minutes late due to technical difficulties, Brock & Co. not only managed to squeeze in upwards of 17 songs, and an encore that nearly stretched to 11 p.m., but Brock was unusually good-natured, witty and self-deprecating for a frontman known for his general taciturn attitude. He was a downright Chatty Cathy on this first night of the Modest Mouse tour, all fresh and ready to tackle the catalog with his current, rather fantastic seven-piece. And man, could they ever groove. Somewhere along the line, Brock caught the hip shake disco funk bug, and it showed on this night.
Somewhere between “Doin the Cockroach” and “Fire it Up,” the music gods cleared the night skies and set a full moon atop the skyline, perfect for a setlist that seemed intuitively designed for the hungry and deprived MM fan — B-sides were delivered, in good quantity and selection along with a charcuterie of lesser known but utterly beloved odes. And we were still stumbling around stunned that Mouse Mouse was indeed on stage kicking off the tour for their forthcoming LP, Strangers to Ourselves in Tampa, on the Hillsborough River.
We loved Modest Mouse for their music first. But it was their genuine joy at Gasparilla Music Festival that really stole our hearts.
And what about that flamingo shirt?—AS & LP
Best One-Handed Meal: Ella’s Chicken and Waffle Cone
A perennial annual favorite, combining the deliciousness of fried chicken and sweet waffle cone with the convenience of not having to put your drink down.—DCG
Comfiest Cabanas: VIP at GMF VIP sponsor Celebrity Cruises made this year’s VIP section the poshest yet with mamasan-style loungers featuring retractable linen covers.—DCG
Best Reason to Pay Extra for VIP: The Bartenders Sure, there’s all that delicious free food from Holy Hog BBQ and the aforementioned shaded seating options, but the best reason to treat yourself is for the grade-A service from some of Tampa’s finest bartenders, like United States Bartenders’ Guild member Justin Gray and Dean Hurst, director of spirits for Bern’s Steak House.—DCG
Most bitchin’ three-part falsetto harmonies: Abyssinians. The vet roots reggae band from Jamaica also deserves a sub-award, “Best old-man skanking and running in place” for its frontman, Bernard Collins. —JG
Best Sign(s) It Was International Women’s Day: Femme Strong Lineup Three of Sunday’s locals were female-fronted/solo acts and they also proved three of Sunday’s best: Dynasty, Shae Krispinsky and Geri X. Gogol Bordello’s Eugene Hutz calmed down long enough to give a shout out to the holiday, too.—JG
Most majestic singer-songwriter performance: Shae Krispinsky Shae rounded out Sunday’s supreme local-woman trifecta, wielding her yellow hollow-bodied Gretsch and gracing the amphitheater stage in black flowing chiffon over-dress that was both elegant and practical on an unusually sunny late-winter afternoon. In her set, Krispinsky belted out ballads that ventured to the darker side of love and longing with a singular vocal that’s at once knowing and sweet. —JG
Tightest New Band Backing a Familiar Local: Geri X Perennial favorite and classically trained Bulgarian-born multi-instrumentalist Geri Micheva defied the sunny weather in a jacket, silver epaulets and spandex pants that resembled those glittery stickers you win for a quarter from arcade game machines. Her voice still has that singular rasp and aching urgency benefitted by the gravitas of maturity. —JG
Most awesome audience participation moment: Dynasty The Queens-born, Tampa-based rapper gave another uplifting and memorable performance at GMF Sunday. Toward the end of the show, she asked the single people in the audience to raise their hands. She called on one — a handsome young bearded guy named Kevin — and asked him to come down to the stage. “You’re not going to enjoy this at all,” she said, sitting on his knee and launching into “After the Laughter,” a post-break-up song.
But Kevin was too disarming. He gave the petite pistol some mushy glances and silly come-ons that took Lady Dy off her punitive game plan. After finishing the tune, she shouted “Make some noise for my boyfriend —” she turned to him, asking, “What’s your name?”
“Your boyfriend,” Kevin responded. —JG
Best Fleur de Lis in the 813: Hot 8 Brass Band The sun beat down harder than it has all year on Sunday afternoon, but Tampa couldn’t stop moving to New Orleans sounds of Hot 8 Brass Band, which prompted much hop-stepping, hip-swaying, ass-shaking and even “504” chant-alongs like we were all proud NOLA natives. —AS
Finest Impersonation of Charlie Daniels on Meth: Ryan Young, Trampled by Turtles.
The stomping, soaring American bluegrass/folk-rock band from Duluth, Minn., put on one of the most beloved sets of Sunday's mainstage (though it’s hard to pick favorites there). —JG
And surprisingly, it wasn't Suenalo or Laritza Bacallao y su Grupo who displayed the most Latin influences... Hutz’s band of merry, multicultural marauders funneled cumbia and Andean rhythms of South America into their heady gypsy-punk concoction. No surprise, since Hutz spent a good chunk of his life on the Amazonian continent this past decade. Percussionist Pedro Erazo hails from Ecuador and gave a shout out to Quito in his rapid-fire rap over a “Carnaval” party tune.
There was even a little mosh pit minus the usual injuries. Thickly accented frontman Eugene Hutz proclaimed “it was premium party.” Set closer “Start Wearing Purple” drew us in with its seemingly harmless intro, and then, suddenly everyone began stomping their feet in the dirt, waving their arm around and shouting the anthemic chorus like drunken bar maids. For a moment, Gogol Bordello made “Wonderlust Kings” of us all. The University of Tampa’s Russian spirals, bathed in the fading sunset, were a proverbial cherry atop this ragtag sundae. —AS & JG
Best Unofficial Pre-After Party After Party: The Hub Post-GMF, early Sunday evening, the downtown dive was overrun with locals, empty PBR cans, and a jukebox in tatters. Only a few plastic sleeve holders remained in-tact; luckily John Prine and Beastie Boys were among them. —AS
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