Show Review

“Whelp, it looks to be just another shitty day in South Florida…” exclaimed one sarcastic festivalgoer, gazing into the blue sky filled with tiny dollops of fluffy white clouds. “…but I’ll take a shitty day down here over a great day up north any day.”

The Langerado Music Festival; South Florida’s premier destination for spring breakers and festivarians alike did very little to disappoint once again this year. Now in its fourth incarnation, the event just keeps growing both in size and star power. Hosting just under 15,000 people and close to 40 bands, this year’s festival was a welcome start to festival season and the anticipation for the warmer weather to finally reach more northern points of the US.

The festival kicked off a day earlier this year with a diverse music sampling from bands such as The Duo, Buckethead, and Perpetual Groove on Friday afternoon’s soundcheck. This gave many of those arriving early to Markham Park the opportunity to warm up their festival stamina that has been dormant for much of the winter.

In addition to extending the festival by a half day, Langerado also grew by adding two additional stages which featured many of the more diverse acts of the weekend. The Florida native stage allowed the festival to feature local groups such as Heavy Pets, Suenalo Sound System, Legendary JC’s and the ever-popular Spam Allstars. The swamp tent gave shelter from the hot sun and hosted acts such as Lake Trout, Lyrics Born, and Secret Machines.

Day one of the festival seemed to be musically organized based on genres. The day started with livetronica bands, Lotus and Lake Trout, and the afternoon brought about bands from all over the genre map, including Spearhead, Umphrey’s McGee and Brazilian Girls. As if the music under the sun wasn’t enough, the day ended with some solid rock and roll from acts such as The Meters, Flaming Lips and Ben Harper.

In contrast, Sunday’s lineup seemed to have no particular musical organization whatspever, but rather had attendees jumping from stage to stage sampling the musical bouillabaisse that makes this event such a sought after destination on the festival circuit. Bands such as Florida’s own Mofro (the only band that’s been featured at all four years of the festival’s existence) competed for the crowd’s attention while Kid Koala got everyone dancing with his turntablistic styling. The horns and afrobeat rhythms of Antibalas shared a timeslot with the reigning king of the sacred steel pedal guitar, Robert Randolph. And Langerado wound up its whirlwind of aural stimulation with an evening filled with such big name acts as Keller Williams, Wilco, and The Black Crowes.

Although the music ended at Markham Park daily at 9pm, Brown Coffee Productions, the festival’s promoters, ensured that those in attendance had music to see to fulfill their late night urges. Friday night brought the Disco Biscuits out to a beautiful open-aired venue (ahh, only in South Florida) called Revolution. The following night, several Bisco members stuck around to join Umphreys McGee for a few songs. Mid-set, bassist Marc Brownstein replaced Ryan Stasik and remained on stage while fellow Bisco band mate, guitarist Jon Gutwillig replaced Brendan Bayliss for a jam following “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2).”

As a wrap-up to all the late night festival-sponsored activities, the double bill of Brothers Past and Conspirator brought out many special guests including Joe Russo on drums for a chilling version of Pink Floyd’s “Fearless” and the other members of the Disco Biscuits showed up to the end the night, on it’s feet, with those in attendance dancing their asses off.

With the added luxuries of on-site camping and more music on more stages this year, the anticipation is high for next year’s festival in the sun. Based on the improvements we saw this year, I can only assume that this festival will continue growing and I’ll be right there to enjoy it, every step of the way!

Photos by Michael Jurick