The Mill Valley Music Festival is back. Happening this weekend, May 11 and 12th. Some of the bands that will be playing this coming weekend are Fleet Foxes, GreenSky Bluegrass, Fruit Bats, The Sacred Souls, Rebirth Brass Band and my favorite in the lineup, St Paul and the Broken Bones. The MVMF is a lovely event. Chill and easy to be at and get to. The following is the coverage from last years festival.... Day 2 of the Mill Valley Music Festival had a line up which included, Jerry Harrison and Adrian Belew playing Talking Heads/Remain in Light, Cake, Durand Jones, Valerie June and The Alive on the big stage. And on the smaller, Sweetwater stage Anna Harrell, Matt Jaffe, and Asher Belsky.
I was most looking forward to the Talking Heads set. I saw this very same performance at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in October 2022 and it was epic then...And it was epic again at the MVMF day two! Adrian Belew had so much fun onstage it was infectious not to enjoy every minute of this mind blowing performance. One forgets what a great album Remain in Light was back in the day. Hearing it now it's as good as it was back then. Although it wasn't the entire original Talking Heads band, this band was excellent! Their horn section was phenomenal! Their drummer was playing with two sticks in one hand and one in the other. I'd never seen that before. He was great too. And I wasn't the only one enjoying myself. From where I was standing, the entire audience behind me was also having a great time dancing to this band! I stayed in the photo pit for their entire set. Looking back at the audience dancing and jumping around in sheer joy listening to this music was a pleasure. The band that Harrison and Belew had with them were such pros. And the sax player, Josh was channelling David Byrne, not only sounding like him but his expressions and movements were like him too. This was definitley the highlight of the weekend for me. Cake went on after the Talking Heads set and they were good. They had a giant disco ball overhead which added to the ambience if you like disco balls. But for me Adrian Belew and Jerry Harrison made this festival amazing. Another thing I love is when I dont know a band and they show up, play and turn my head. And that band this weekend was Durand Jones. If you like Vintage Trouble like I do, you'll like Durand Jones and the Indications. They are high energy R&B/Soul music from Indiana with frontman, Aaron Frazer that could easily be a relation to James Brown judging from his moves. Really impressive, both their music and their captivating performance. I suggest checking this band out. I didn't get to see the others on this day but I was told by my pal Brian, a radio friend of mine at KRCB, (I trust his opinion on music), he said, Valerie Jones also had a great set. And it was a shame that I missed her.
I met a ton of really great people and we all seemed to be having a good day at this festival. The amount of children that attended was refreshing to see. All were dancing, some with noise canceling headphones some without, but one thing they had in common was they all seemed to be loving the day and enjoying the music...and that....my music loving friends, is what it's all about...enjoying the music!
Thank you to all the Mill Valley Music Festival organizers, you did a bang up job! Seeing so much happiness in one place was a truly beautiful thing. Looking forward to covering this joyful event next year!
© Cheryl Alterman Photography 2023 Except the shots of me...Photo Credit: Daniel Simon
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