Grace Potter’s Grand Point North Festival is celebrating its seventh year in 2017, but if there was a nagging predictability or any sense of lack of imagination in the presentation in general, such negativism dissipated in the high barometric pressure that brought mid-July weather to mid-September at Burlington’s Waterfront Park.
Temperatures in the eighties and a breeze off Lake Champlain under a cloudless sky highlighting splashes of fall colors in the green trees at the perimeter, was more than enough distraction. And if GPN’s main mission is the nurturing of up and coming musical artists, local to Vermont or otherwise, Saturday’s (9/16) roster of acts was a textbook case of development in progress. By the time Tank & the Bangas took the stage, the hesitant guitar riff-funk of Lake Superior (matched by their own timid repartee with those who came early) gave way to their well-rehearsed hip-hop infused New Orleans braggadocio. Greeted by the first whiffs of the sweet leaf as dusk approached, the ensemble ran out of ideas just shy of the end of their forty-five minute set, but that didn’t much reduce the closest thing to a roar from the audience at that point.
And Hurray For The Riff Raff built on that level of intensity with their country tinged rock and roll. The quintet might’ve even elevated the excitement in the air further had they peppered an unfortunate string of mid-tempo songs with more upbeat tunes (not to mention shorter ones) and utilized more instrumental breaks. But perhaps knowing they needed to leave the crowd with a rousing finish to consolidate their overall favorable (and well-earned) impression, they concluded with Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark.” The song’s singalong clearly touched a nerve in the ever-expanding crowd, providing a logical segue to the frenetic Mondo Cozmo. This extroverted ensemble ratcheted up the volume and the tempo of music. Their quasi-anthemic U2 sources were perhaps a bit too obvious –and, in the long run, perhaps a dead-end stylistically–but it didn’t make their good-natured engagement any less forceful. Multiple shout-outs to the sponsor of the festival sounded less contrived than a knowing means to pump up the gathering.
For a band that abides by its finesse, following that group might’ve spelled trouble for Dawes, But partly because the audio volume stayed (excessively) high, and more so because the quintet paced its set in such a skillful manner, their performance gained momentum and impact grew almost imperceptibly with every other number. Dawes might well have stolen the show from Grace Potter by the time they were done. The combination of Taylor Goldsmith’s addictive original songs, the front man’s animated delight in being on stage combined with the cumulative effort of all five band members so that Grace Potter and her group might well have ended up an anti-climax.
But the blond Vermont chanteuse took the stage as a conquering heroine anyway. And even as she mixed the earthy sexuality of Grace Slick (a tease of Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love”) with some meditative mysticism a la Steve Nicks, Potter was something of a surprise in her mostly winning closing slot. Seeming humbled by a world on and off the brink, not to mention personal circumstance—she offhandedly announced she was pregnant by way of rhapsodizing about the sweet aroma of kettle corn wafting in the air—she and her band rumbled through a fairly uniform, decidedly crowd-pleasing mix of power ballads and pop-structured heavy rock reminiscent of Heart’s Wilson sisters on their headlining night. A steady stream of those departing didn’t diminish the close quarters stage front or noticeably reduce the density of the lawn population.
Grace Potter will probably never lose her tendency to over-sing any more than she will jettison her coy sexuality and ended up yelling more than singing at a number of points just about as often as she danced (sic) like everyone was watching. But apart from the sexpot physical mannerisms, she was less abandoned in past years and the lack of bombast emanating from her backing band was right in line with that tempered attitude. Stage production calling to mind TV’s The Voice nevertheless played on ready crowd response and while the front woman’s return to the stage with a single acoustic guitar was a bit self-absorbed, it was also honestly touching when she played, though not so much when she sermonized.
Far more disingenuous was the blues-derived riffing the native Vermont woman indulged in with her Gibson Flying-V guitar right after, but it all made sense to deliberately conclude with “Paris (Ooh La La)” in order to book-ending a set that began on the comparably self-serving “Medicine.” But if all the other picture-perfect, mostly comfort-inducing aspects of Grand Point North 2017 Day One hadn’t been enough, Grace Potter and company made it worthwhile to not only looking forward to the festival’s second night, but even beyond the short-term future.
Photos by Ross Mickel
