Savannah Stopover 2015 – Day 1 Review

Review and Photos By: Mike Gerry

Savannah Stopover is a great little festival in it’s fifth year of existence taking advantage of the logistics of Savannah’s close proximity to Interstate 95 and 10 as bands head to Austin for SXSW. Much like SXSW, Stopover occurs across various venues in Savannah from bars to churches. It’s actually a perfect little festival (more about the festival itself coming in our Day 3 wrap up). 

After fighting through the Atlanta traffic and arriving a little late, we were still there in time to capture a few bands we had been itching to see.

The first band we caught were one of LA’s finest, Corners, from the mega rad label lolipop records. We caught a little of their set a few months back at Star Community Bar in Atlanta with our friends at Audio Fawn, who haven’t stopped talking about these guys since. Needless to say, they were high on our list to catch their full set at Stopover already.

Not only did Corners not disappoint, they were the first band we caught, and also one of the best we saw throughout the whole festival.

The crowd was packed out at HangFire Bar for Corners. The post punk, synth heavy garage rockers took Savannah by storm. Once this set was over, all you heard throughout the crowd (and the rest of the weekend) was just how great this LA band was. They had made their mark.

We stayed at Hang Fire for the next band, Cobalt Cranes, another lolipop special from LA whom we have been singing their praises for a while based on their 2014 album Days in the Sun.

Cobalt Cranes’ California Psych Grunge was just as great live as we had hoped.

We left their set a few minutes early so we could make it over to Wild Wings Cafe for Avers from Richmond, VA. Avers are a talented psych pop, garage rock group featuring members of The Head and the Heart, the Mason Brothers, Farm Vegas, Hypercolor, and the Trillions.

Avers brings lots of guitar, loud and great!

Next up at Wild Wings was Nashville’s ELEL. They don’t have more than an EP out at this time, but have already been making waves with their fun hit 40 Watt.

Described as indie pop with soul music and good vibes, this group had fun on stage.

And so did the crowd at Wild Wings!

Day 1 of Savannah Stopover was a heck of a start! A lot more music to come throughout the weekend. All that was left on the first night was the after party. And no one needs to talk about those.