Monday, September 15, 2014
Los Angelenos know we are spoiled. Because of our year-long drought-driven sunny weather, our festival season never ends. But what about smaller cities with shorter outdoor concert seasons? You know those fans in the comments section of band postings asking "When are you coming to ____?" and we just laugh because we rarely need to ask those questions. And even when we do get big bands in LA, we leave early to beat the traffic. That's part of the reason why we visited Raleigh, North Carolina recently to celebrate Hopscotch Festival's 5th year -- to see what music appreciation looks like again.
For Angelenos unfamiliar with Raleigh or failed geography like us, it's the capital of North Carolina and one-third of The Triangle betwixt Durham and Chapel Hill, each about 30 minutes apart. So it's no backwoods town. It's full of hip shops, restaurants, clubs, late-night eats, museums, and the usual cultural milieu fit for the state's fastest growing city. Still, it feels small, perhaps like downtown Santa Monica with everything easily within walking distance to each other, which makes Hopscotch Festival very accessible to even those LA peeps who need to drive from The Echo to the Echoplex because they're too far apart.
Festival highlights included getting our feet wet (literally; it poured rain nearly all night) on Day 1 running around to see Deniro Farrar (the man is a damn genius),Yvette (pretty incredible), and Deep Sleeper (who soundtracks the video we put together below). On Day 2, we thoroughly enjoyed the company of some LA friends Clipping. and Open Mike Eagle at Pour House Music Hall, not to mention excellent sets from Priests, Winston Facials, and Potty Mouth. For the final day, we were absolutely entranced by Witch Mountain (who played a few weeks earlier on their tour at the Viper Room) and were front and center for White Lung, Eternal Summers and Sun Araw to finish the fest.
We very much enjoyed our stay in Raleigh. For Angelenos thinking about heading out next year, we recommend hitting up local sites like NCMH, NCMNS, and Pullen Park (pictured above and it's even prettier than that in person), all of which were pretty cool and free. Hopefully, we'll be back next year.
