By James Kelly
Since Firefly Music Festival no longer exists, many Delawareans–and those adjacent–are trying to fill an outdoor, multi stage festival-sized hole in their hearts. Not wanting to travel as far north as Massachusetts leaves out Boston Calling, and now that Oceans Calling in Ocean City, Maryland, is sold out, the question has to be asked: who you gonna call?
We picked up the phone and found Musikfest, a festival we think is sure to make up for lost time not spent at Firefly, probably because it spans eleven days. From August 1st all the way through the 11th, festival goers can bounce around between any of the nineteen locations that are showcasing both local and national acts–the best part is, most of it is free. The headlining acts each night are ticketed, and the headliner kicking off Musikfest 2024 was none other than Greta Van Fleet.
Nearly a year ago, a few WVUD Operations Board Members went to see GVF at the Wells Fargo Center. Macayla Cook wrote a blog post for their time at that concert, and as I’m writing this, I’m interested in seeing what parallels there are between the two once I’m done. Please take a jaunt through her piece before continuing here.
Deep within the “ye-old” Bethlehem Steel complex now sits a few concert stages that are used during Musikfest, as well as for a few pop-up concerts here and there throughout the year. GVF played the main stage which sits adjacent to what’s now called the SteelStacks, where iron ore used to be smelted to make the steel that built America’s skyscrapers. While it might look like the ruins of District 13 from The Hunger Games, it’s pretty damn cool. Abandoned warehouses everywhere and rusty smokestacks that no longer billow smoke set the sketchy vibe that would remain if there wasn’t music playing. It almost feels like you shouldn’t even be allowed inside–and yet, here we are, about to see GVF rock the place alive again.
WVUD Photographer, Gretchen Hartenstein, seen here wondering how indeed she got there.
Not wanting to walk away just like that, we decided to take advantage of having parked so close to the stage and sat by the car to listen to the rest of the concert. We heard, albeit muffled, some of our favorites like “Highway Tune,” “Black Smoke Rising,” and “Light My Love.” These songs range from three to four and a half minutes on the albums, but live in concert? Try close to eight minutes each. Between each song, they would do an instrumental interlude to pass the time. This is when we determined something about going to see them at Musikfest. If you paid with the mindset to see the band perform your favorite songs, or just even a broader variety of their music, you would feel a little gypped. They only played ten songs over two hours.
However, if you went in just wanting to see the band play live, then you would’ve had a great time. While we were up in the pit taking pictures, a few people on the barrier in the front row were crying. I love that for them. I love that they got to see their favorite band perform. What I don’t love is the value for money for everyone who found themselves wanting to hear more, experienced. We got to see them for free, for the brief moment we were inside, but even then, when we were out in the parking lot, we enjoyed our free snacks while we listened to a free concert. So as far as I’m concerned, we got our money’s worth, and that’s worth two points in my book. The Final: WVUD – 2, Musikfest – 1.
For more photos from GVF at Musikfest, check out Gretchen’s photo gallery here.