Candler Park Music and Food Festival 2019

The Candler Park Music & Food Festival returned for its 11th year to the historic Atlanta Park east of Little Five Points last weekend. The music remained true to Candler Park form, with rootsy festival alumni and returning local acts. And also true to form was the environment, where a single performance stage along with a dozen or more artist tents and a handful of food trucks come together with the kind of laid back, early summer vibes that make Candler Park Festival great.

The shows began on Friday with Priscilla Block, a singer-songwriter out of Nashville, TN by way of Raleigh, NC. Block has a contemporary country, pop and all-around southern sound honed in noteworthy Nashville talent venues like the Listening Room.

An hour later, Augusta, GA’s Funk You took the stage. Maybe it was the steady stream of people beginning to fill the park grounds as they arrived after work on a Friday afternoon, or the band’s energetic, driving brand of rock and roll — a sound they describe it as “an outgoing burst of energy” — but, as the funk wore on, the festival’s collective energy began to swell.

Iconic reggae torchbearer Stephen Robert Nesta “Raggamuffin” Marley — eight-time Grammy Award winner, son of Bob and keeper of the Marley flame — was the third of four Friday bands. His reggae was righteous and straightforward; exactly the sort of “I Shot the Sherrif” sound you’d hope for when attending a Marley show. He and his band played original Stephen Marley reggae hits and several pitch-perfect Bob Marley covers. Also, there was just…something in the air as the sun set on Atlanta, you know?

Friday culminated with headliners Greensky Bluegrass, once grizzled road veterans of the jam festival undercard turned elder statesmen of the jamgrass scene. Candler Park was their last stop before the self-hosted Camp Greensky Bluegrass festival in Michigan, and a Saturday-closing set at the legendary Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado, yet their performance felt focused, connected and fun. They opened their set with “Murder of Crows”, played hits like “Windshield” and pulled a nice little “Break Mountain Brokedown” into Pink Floyd’s “Time” into “Breathe Reprise” and back into “Break Mountain Brokedown” to close the set, before closing out the night with “Old Barns” for an encore. It was veteran bluegrass stuff.

On Saturday, the gates opened at noon, and day two of the Candler Park Music & Food Festival began with local cover band Webster. I’m fairly certain that Webster has played this festival every single year going back to possibly the beginning of time. Nonetheless, Webster is a versatile, fun-loving cover band who can play anything from Phish to Van Morrison, and all the rock and roll in between. They kicked the day off in classic Candler style which included a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Queen Jane Approximately”.

Next to take the stage was Buffalo, NY’s Aqueous, a groove rock band with modern soundscapes and a tendency to improvise in the old jam band tradition. So many bands in the modern psychedelic scene have gone away from the improvisational elements of jam, trending instead towards the trance-inducing MIDI loops and various synth set pieces. It’s refreshing, then, to see a band do it the old Phish way: by seeing where the music goes on stage. Such is Aqueous.

After Aqueous came Americana act Larkin Poe; two sisters out of Calhoun, GA who are now based in Nashville. Despite the move, the sister’s roots lie in Atlanta including a stint living in Poncey Highlands. They have a unique roots rock sound that has won them plenty of accolades, and performances with Elvis Costello, Mumford and Sons, Bright Eyes and more. Armed with some of their newest material from their fourth album Venom & Faith, released in November, the band showed off their soulful rock steeped in blues. If you’ve ever seen Larkin Poe live before, then you know that these sisters put on a heck of show as they move about nonstop. Their music is a celebration of roots music that included a cover of Lead Belly’s “Black Betty” that once again showed the hometown crowd why they should be proud and excited for Larkin Poe’s rising success.

Duluth, MN’s Trampled by Turtles took the stage shortly after 5 p.m. on what turned out to be a sunny Saturday afternoon in the park, and the veteran bluegrass ensemble played an upbeat set for the growing crowd. Trampled by Turtles is not your run of the mill bluegrass act, though. Fast tempos and frenetic pace give way to fun-loving melodies and a sound far more contemporary than the bluegrass of old.

At 7 p.m., Dr. Dog took the stage. Probably the biggest name on the two-day festival concert poster for us, the band worked their way steadily through a 19 song setlist that included hits like “Where’d All The Time Go”, “Nellie”, and “The Breeze”. Dr. Dog has spent plenty of time in Atlanta over their career, including multiple years playing Shaky Knees Music Festival, buidling a solid fanbase here always excited to see the band live. Their energetic perforamnces are a known staple for fans, but for those unfamilar the band’s passion and harmonies are automatic crowd pleasers, which was no different at Candler Park as Dr. Dog took over the festival grounds in the late afternoon sun.

And last but not least for the Candler Park Music & Food Festival was Dispatch. Surely, among casual fans of the genre, the 1997 roots rock album Bang Bang is still regarded as a late 90’s classic that helped pave the way for other roots rockers in the years to follow. But in the years that followed their early success, Dispatch proved to be an on-again, off-again kind of act. The band was active from 1996-2002, on again 2011-2013, and then on hiatus from 2013 until a new studio album release in June of 2017. For all of that uncertainty, their fanbase has remained loyal, and for good reason. In an era of political upheaval and tremendous uncertainty, socially-minded bands like Dispatch — and Dispatch has always kept messages of activism at the forefront — are just the kind of bands we need on stage.

As a Saturday night headliner, their sound is a little more plugged-in than the Dispatch of old. They played a steady mix of tracks from old albums like Bang Bang, and newer ones. And if you guessed that they would close their set with “The General”, you were wrong. That honor went to the newer “Letter to Lady J” and an encore of “Elias”. You were wrong, of course, because it’s a new era for Dispatch, as evidenced in their sound and their approach to the setlist. And as the acoustic-friendly roots rockers gave a final wave, another year — the 11th — was sealed into the history books, and filed under Atlanta’s chillest music festival, 2019. ~ Written by Adam Kincaid

Check out the photo gallery below from the 2019 Candler Park Music and Food Festival, all photos by Mike Gerry:

Funk You