After taking the earlier part of the day to recover — and to spend an exorbitant amount of money on long-overdue car repairs — I walked down to Musikfest, planning to catch a few acts in particular.
I caught all of the ones I intended to hear, and then some. My evening began at the Provident Bank Main Street stage, where Butterjive was bringing the chill with their brand of jazz on this beautiful evening.
After enjoying Butterjive’s smooth sounds for a while, I moved a bit further down Main Street, where I ran into Fire Guy. No, he’s not a Mario villain — he’s a street performer who juggles and eats fire. His performance involved humor, audience participation and, true to form, death-defying stunts.
Fire Guy concluded his act by eating a flame, as depicted above. Once that was done, I began to head down to Plaza Tropical to check out Summer Scouts… until I realized that I had a little bit of extra time. That meant a bit of bonus action, so I headed down to Volksplatz, where I discovered Blair Crimmins and the Hookers, whose old-school, toe-tapping jazz had the crowd up and moving.
After hanging out with the Hookers for a bit (I just realized how bad that sounds — oh well, I’m keeping it), I traveled back over to Plaza Tropical to catch Summer Scouts in the middle of their set, a mix of covers and originals performed in front of a hot and lively crowd.
By the end of Summer Scouts’ set, night had fallen, and an energy was in the air that is usually reserved for Friday or Saturday nights any other time of the year. It carried back over to Volksplatz, where the tent had a definite Friday night feel when Flowers for Taco took the stage.
The high-energy cover band ripped through the early part of their set, attacking each song with an excitement that had built up for 15 years. That’s how long vocalist and guitarist Rusty Snow said he had been waiting to perform on that stage, and he and the band did not disappoint.
As much as I didn’t want to leave Flowers for Taco in the midst of a raging Monday night party, I knew that there was one more band I wanted to see before calling it a night — Bethlehem’s own Slingshot Dakota.
I had covered the duo — and Mimey, their interpretive dancing mime — back in June at SteelStacks. They were solid then, and they’re solid now, playing selections off of their album, “Break,” while telling funny stories behind their songs in front of a packed Plaza Tropical tent.
