GRUNGE-A-PALOOZA FESTIVAL

ONE CENTRE SQUARE, EASTON, PA

BY JOSIE JANCI

On March 17th, St. Patty’s Day at One Centre Square, Easton ,Pa, many of the local music lovers decided to forego the typical green beer, parade watching, shelali waving tradition to attend a venue offering a more sophisticated and classy form of entertainment. GRUNGE-A-PALOOZA!!!

Yep, you read correctly! This fantastic day long festival was filled with music that reminds you over and over again of your teenage angst - 90's grunge. Who to perform these treasures you may ask, well, grunge tribute bands of course!

The festival moves from city to city organized by Dave Allen, a member of the band Flannel who, of course, performs during the event. His band plays multiple artists from the era including Pearl Jam, STP and even some Beastie Boys for good measure. The lineup always includes a local band to start out the day, and this year we had E.V.I.L. a LIVE tribute band. Now, I'm not sure I'd call LIVE a grunge band but it wasn't too much of a stretchand the performance was met with applause, so success is theirs.

In addition to EVIL and Flannel we had bands "Sea of Sorrow”, which is an Alice in Chains tribute, White Limo -Foo Fighters, Love killed Kurt (see what they did there with the name....) a Nirvana tribute band, and Purple to the Core - Stone Temple Pilots band. Each band totally rocked!

The day was spectacular,and the 20.00 ticket may have deterred some people weeks in advance, but once the day came, so did the audience. And they absolutely came to party! They were not to be denied!

There were bagpipes in honor of St. Patrick’s day played between sets by the drummer of Flannel (not your typical 2nd instrument to play...let alone OWN) there was a ton of crowd surfing, sing alongs, chicks jumping on stage, and beer spilling everywhere. It was awesome! Even I managed a few seconds at the microphone while it's owner, the female bassist of the band "Love killed Kurt" was busy crowd surfing. I got sucked in...What can I say!?

Grunge-A-Palooza is an annual festival and we can't wait until it returns next year! In a wonderfully related story, I shall mention that Steel Waves Radio (Steel Notes Magazine's sexy sister) will be sponsoring Grunge-A-Palooza for the rest of it's east coast tour! If you are lucky enough to have Grun- ge-A-Palooza visit your town, make a point to not only attend, but look for the Steel Waves rep and say hello! We will be the people wearing flannel!

Here are the upcoming dates:

April 14th - The Queen - Wilmington DE

May 18th - Sweeney's - Philadelphia PA

August 4 - Underground Arts - Philadelphia PA

September 8 - World Cafe - Philadelphia PA

Always listening, Josie Janci