Written by Evan Levy, Photos by James Orr, Peggy Fusco & Lauren Armanie
Earlier we got to hear a preview of the musical goodness in store for us at the Awareness Village stage. Now, backed by his full band, Michael Franti delivered us a heavy helping of his new material while still keeping the crowd hyped up with his usual crowd pleasers. A few songs into his set, the skies opened up and dumped heavy rain and pounding wind on the crowd - a brief rain delay of the music as everyone ran for cover.
After about 20 minutes, the bad weather ended and the sun shone through again. Stagehands furiously mopped up the damage and Michael & the band were back on stage doing what they do best. The new songs from his album "The Sound of Sunshine" is not really a departure for Michael, but allows yet another way in which his music can shine. The new songs are filled with dance happy rhythms and lots of pop melodies that kept this crowd moving.
A special moment occurred when Michael talked about buying a guitar recently and had asked someone to pull a sticker off of it - midway through peeling it, Michael asked the person to stop as he claimed to see an "angel" underneath the sticker (he said that was on some heavy drugs recovering from his burst appendix operation at the time). The sticker stayed on so he could keep her spirit in the guitar. He then dedicated the song "Gloria" to the angel and all the women in the MJVI crowd. Afterwards he moved through the crowd singing songs in the thick of it, then pulling a pair of fans on stage to do some air guitar to Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Another special dedication was given to anyone to had a hard week leading up to the festival - it was another new song called "Hey Hey Hey" which he has been singing alot of his tour opening up for John Mayer. The finale commenced with a rockabilly version of his recent mainstream hit "Say Hey (I Love You)" backed up by a crowd of kids twirling towels along to the beat. It was definitely another electric set from Michael Franti & Spearhead on the Mountain Jam stage. More coverage coming up - keep checking back to the blog and be sure to watch the video from the shows here.
7 comments:
hey do you have any pics or video clips of when he had the two fans up on stage to play guitar? i am the woman that was asked up and I would do anything to see some clips!!!??? thank you! Rebecca
Rebecca, you played some mean guitar up there, ROCK ON! Sorry, I don't have any pictures of you, just a great memory!
Steve-O
yo steve-o, did u get any pics of franti playin the bongos in the crowd during the rain delay,that was an awesome moment right there,stood right next to him the whole time....classic moment!
What was the band's lineup that day - his guitarist was great !
Michael was a highlight of the show - coming back from the rain he and the band picked up the energy big time, he walked the crowd, he worked the crowd and bringing the kids up was superb ! Thank you Michael & Spearhead !
great.
what a wonderful blog, Your efforts are appreciable.
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