LEVITATE MUSIC FESTIVAL DAY 1
Levitate Music Festival Day 1, Marshfield State Fairgrounds, Marshfield, MA. 7/5/24.
Day 1 of Levitate Music Festival had the Boston area buzzing. On a beautiful Friday afternoon the festival started with Jon Muq, a pop singer from Uganda on the Stoke stage. He was the perfect artist to get the day started with a mellow intro into the weekend. After Jon was Grace Bowers, a 17 year old guitarist from Nashville with big hair and an even bigger stage presence. The singer of her act was extremely talented and the two of them had a lot of chemistry playing and singing back to back multiple times throughout the set. After Grace was a cool DJ named Lee Ross, who had a cosmic outfit on and got the whole audience dancing. He really brought it home when he pulled out the saxophone, playing along with his funky beats. Another great act on Friday was The Moss, starring a barefoot singer who you could barely keep up with your camera because he was running and jumping all over the stage. After The Moss was the legendary Neal Francis; who early into his set broke the piano bench so he told the crowd they would have to watch him put it back together. Once he fixed the bench he held it over his head and went back to work and played his hit song “Can’t Stop the Rain”. After Neal the crowd made it over for a short set from Stolen Gin, a band from New York City known for their improvisational skills and live performances. After their set everyone made their way over to the main stage to check out Dirty Heads who had a ton of fans in the audience. They went on to play hit after hit while running all over the stage. The crowd lit up with excitement when they played “Vacation” and you could hear everyone in attendance singing along to the infectious song. Three members of the legendary jam band Goose made up the trio of Orebolo, playing on the Style Stage. Before they came out the crowd was shouting “Goooose” to will them out. They played a very cool, mellow set before everyone made their way back to Stoke stage to hear the headliner; Mt. Joy. Mt. Joy came running out to a full screaming audience and led off with some hit songs like “Sheep”, “Evergreen”, and “Astrovan” but managed to mix in some surprises like a cover of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” and another great cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”. Later in the set the band brought out Goose’s Rick Mitaratonda returning the favor for Goose bringing out Mt. Joy’s Matt Quinn when they played in Philadelphia. Overall it was an amazing first day and anyone with a 3 day pass couldn’t wait for what was still to come.
Shot and Written by Jonah van Bemmelen.
