September 4, 2017
For years, one of the best summer bets in NYC was the Seaport Music Festival downtown at South Street Seaport (QRO venue review), free bands every Friday like The National (QRO photos) and The xx (QRO photos). It was so good that when Village Voice ended its free Siren Music Festival on Coney Island, it moved to South Street Seaport at 4Knots Festival (QRO ’16 recap). But then Hurricane Harvey hit the Seaport hard, forcing major reconstruction and first moving, then seemingly ending the Seaport Music Festival.
But for 2017 it’s back, Thursday-Sunday, September 7th-10th:
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7th
| Comedy On the Wavertree Adira Amram & The Experience Ophira Eisenberg Giulia Rozzi |
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Garden Bar The Alpaca Gnomes |
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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8th
| The Dance Cartel’s Wet Clutch, 8:30 PM The Dance Cartel’s Wet Clutch is an immersive drive-in dance experience premiere that reinterprets and remixes movie heroines from the last four decades of American film. |
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SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9th
| Ted Leo & The Pharmacists, 7:00 PM Slowly but surely, Theodore Francis Leo (QRO photos outdoors) is getting the respect he is due. A force in the indie-punk scene for almost thirty years now, he’s never quite gotten the attention to match his influence, which is huge (QRO photos at a festival). But Ted Leo & The Pharmacists (QRO photos outdoors) – which also includes James Canty of the iconic Nation of Ulysses & Sunday’s follow-up The Make-Up (see below) – has been finding a whole new generation of fans these last few years (QRO photos outdoors). And thankfully Ted Leo (QRO photos at a festival, opening for a band who’d once opened for him) is headlining (QRO photos earlier in the day at a festival). He comes to South Street Seaport behind his first record since 2010, The Hanged Man. |
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| Also: Big Huge, 6:00 PM Azar Swan, 5:00 PM Jean Grae, 4:00 PM |
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Garden Bar Odetta Hartman, 5:00 PM |
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SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10th
| The Make-Up, 7:45 PM Ladies & gentlemen, The Make-Up (QRO photos at a festival)! Out of the ashes of the seminal D.C. hardcore act Nation of Ulysses came that Gospel Yeah Yeah sound, a mix of punk, garage, soul, and liberation theology that brought rock ‘n’ roll to communal epiphany, fronted by singer Ian Svenonius and including guitarist James Canty (now of Saturday’s Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – see above). The Make-Up broke-up in early 2000 (or rather, just as NOU became The Make-Up, The Make-up rearranged and were reincarnated as Weird War, and now Svenonius’ Chain & The Gang – QRO photos), but this year reunited (QRO photos – cue the NOU reunion rumors…). |
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| Martin Rev, 6:45 PM The surviving half of one of the most influential electronic acts ever, Suicide (QRO photos at a festival), Martin Rev has stretched from no wave to bubblegum pop in his long career, and now returns to South Street Seaport (the movie of that appearance premieres just after – see below). |
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| James Chance & The Contortions, 5:45 PM New York’s No Wave movement might have had a short life in the seventies, but it did give forth singer/songwriter/saxophonist James Chance, who combines punk, funk & jazz. He comes to South Street Seaport with his band, The Contortions. |
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| Also: The Wolfmanhattan Project, 5:00 PM The Nude Party, 4:15 PM Death Valley Girls, 3:30 PM – QRO photos Surfbort, 2:45 PM – QRO photos at 4Knots Festival Warm Drag, 2:00 PM |
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Suicide: South Street Seaport, 2007, 9:00 PM Film premiere documenting Suicide’s performance right there are South Street Seaport a decade ago. |
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For festival website, go here: http://www.seaportmusicfestival.com/
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