Anyone who’s followed the music scene in the Pacific Northwest has heard murmurs from scenester friends about the lowkey cool of Boise’s Treefort Music Festival, which consumes the Idaho capitol the week after South By Southwest winds down. What started in 2012 as a modest affair that spanned a small collection of dive bars and pop-up venues has expanded significantly in its 11th installment, with an eastward migration of the festivals footprint that’s highlighted by a shift of the main stage from a drab municipal parking lot to a grassy park on the banks of the Boise River. It’s hard to get sentimental about the loss of a parking lot, but the trajectory of the festival – which has evolved lockstep with the post-pandemic explosion of Boise itself – felt symbolic to returning visitors who cherish Treefort’s scrappy underdog spirit. Treefort is obviously getting bigger, but at what cost?
The good news is that the sheer volume of genres on offer has never been more diverse, which is heartening to see as more mainstream festivals blow their proverbial wads on marquee acts at the expense of smaller bookings. Treefort organizers probably couldn’t bring back Lizzo after her massive headlining set in 2017, but they nabbed Margo Price, Cautious Clay, Ani DiFranco and 20 unknown punk bands instead. With over 500 acts on the roster, it’s hard to pin one specific genre to the festival, but the overall vibe of Treefort gave considerable preference to the ragged fringes of staid American genres like folk, country and punk. Some of the most exciting acts embraced all three genres at once, while others logged triumphant efforts at agitating the throngs of Patagonia-clad normies who spent most of the weekend drinking beer on a blanket in the park.
Beloved dirtbag bars like The Shredder and Neurolux continue to chug along at the same breakneck pace, hosting everything from hesher metal to emo rap. New venues like the Treefort Music Hall, a 1000+ capacity venue built inside an old Office Depot, provided a more conventional concert-going experience, and a converted Greyhound station that doubled as a DIY punk venue and an ad-hoc queer disco are welcome additions to Treefort’s expansive footprint. You’ll probably log a few more steps than you expected getting from here to there in its current form, but the spontaneity and the independent spirit of Treefort is still a force to be reckoned with in an increasingly homogenous US festival circuit.
Speaking of spontaneity, below you’ll find a rundown of the most noteworthy sets we stumbled upon while keeping our ears open and looking for nothing in particular. Treefort is a fine time if you show up knowing exactly what you want, but it’s much better if you throw your plans out the window and drift aimlessly from one venue to another like we did.
Best “Country plus X” set
Rose City Band
Roots rock was everywhere at Treefort. Most of the country-adjacent acts at Treefort felt more aligned with NPR than Walmart, but there’s no denying that the umbrella of indie rock has widened to the point that even your standard “I like everything but rap and country” contrarian could find something to enjoy on the twangier side of the spectrum. Enter Ripley Johnson’s latest project, the aptly-named Portland-based space-country act Rose City Band, which previewed tracks from their upcoming record Garden Party alongside a handful of ambling, krautrock-inspired slow-burners that reached skyward from the Bandshell stage on Saturday night. Johnson caught the ear of quite a few converts, with denim-clad converts audibly likening his work to reliable big tent acts like Wilco and My Morning Jacket.
Stiffest middle finger to the man
Help
The members of Help have lived a hundred lives as Portland musicians, and it’s fitting that their buzziest configuration yet is a noisy, white-knuckled punk act that wastes no time in eviscerating anything even remotely related to the establishment. The trio wasted little time in working the sizable crowd as the converted Greyhound station into an agitated fury, with their nimble set of sub-2 minute salvos culminating in the group being escorted off the property after they set an American flag on fire.
Spiciest late-night set
Zeta
Zeta’s preference for careening tempo shifts and merciless riffage would nominally qualify the Venezuelan collective as a psych group of sorts, but the energy of their midnight gig that set the El Korah Shrine ablaze felt more like a DIY punk show than the proggy wankfest that many of the inebriated attendees expected. The combo of razor-sharp technicality, kaleidoscopic lights and unbridled energy from the group landed Zeta squarely in both worlds, which pleased both the crust punks and old heads in attendance in equal measure. To paraphrase a popular GIF, why not both?
Best appropriation of mega-church energy
Family Worship Center
Stumbling upon a set that keeps the midday doldrums at bay is crucial at itinerant festivals that can last upwards of 12 hours in one day, and Family Worship Center was certainly up to the task. The 13-piece group donned matching outfits that could be best-described as “disco-soul cult chic,” and the joyous noise they conjured during their half-hour set sounded almost exactly like it looked. Nestled within the Portland groups ironic gimmick is solid songwriting that lands somewhere between Sam Cooke and Polyphonic Spree, which is just what the doctor ordered when energy is flagging in the hours before the big name headliners start trickling in.
Worst transition from Tik Tok to IRL
Beach Bums
Since the early days of hip-hop there’s been a perfectly fine argument to be made in favor of the democratizing power of music that’s made on as little gear as possible. It’s always been tough to stick the landing when it comes to playing said music on stage, however, and it’s rather unfortunate that the blitzkrieg of angst generated by Beach Bums’ recorded output failed miserably in transitioning to a salvageable live product. The LA-based emo rap quartet did a fine job of whipping the teens that packed The Shredder for their set into a frenzy, but that inertia died almost immediately when everyone realized it was no more than a glorified karaoke session in which most of the members stood around looking at their instruments instead of playing them. They might be onto something if they hire a drummer and invest more time and energy in their live set. Until that happens they need to get off my lawn.
Best riff on yacht rock
Drugdealer
It’s hard to pin down when or why smooth 70’s AOR cheese became cool again, but the impressive number of Spotify plays racked up by Drugdealer is solid evidence that the days of hating on soft rock for scene cred are over. A lively crowd braved the dusting of snow and showed up early to enjoy the LA outfit’s pitch-perfect and unashamed riffing on influences like Steely Dan, Harry Nilsson and The Velvet Underground, with frontman Michael Collins’ inviting random audience members to hop on stage and sing harmonies (of which there were many) on the album cuts that appeared earlier in the set. No one was courageous enough to take the bait, so the band soldiered on through an immaculate set highlighted by a cover of Nick Lowe’s “Cruel to Be Kind” and their buzz-worthy hit “Suddenly.”
Best BJM worship
Sun Atoms
The shadow of Brian Jonestown Massacre looms large in Portland, Ore. It’s debatable whether or not it’s been long enough since their unflattering portrayal in the 2004 rock doc Dig! to safely worship at the altar of the beleaguered psych-rock group without catching flak from surly Gen X’ers who were there, maaaaaan, but Portland’s own Sun Atoms certainly present a convincing case that it’s time for the torch to be passed. The six-piece built a slow-burning set of louche psychedelia that pulled equally from pre-recession Portland and the druggier corners of the 80’s UK post-punk scene, with acts like The Cult and Bauhaus offshoot Love & Rockets feeling like notable touchpoints. If nursing a hangover while chain-smoking and talking shit in front of Old Portland landmarks like Dot’s Cafe or Dante’s had a soundtrack it would likely include at least a few songs off Sun Atoms’ excellent 2021 record Let There Be Light, which slinked and slithered to life during their early-afternoon Sunday set.
All photos by Greg Homolka
