Spring Fest Main Stage Highlight

This year, in keeping with the Live & Local theme, Spring Fest will feature 6 locally-based bands. The diverse talent appearing at Spring Fest 2017 will showcase the Triangle’s vibrant and eclectic music scene, with each band representing a different genre from indie, jazz, and reggae, to latin, hip-hop, and bluegrass. 

 

Tea Cup Gin

Founded in 2012, Tea Cup Gin blends indie-jazz music with influences from early 20th-century music genres, unique melodies, passionate lyrics, acoustic guitar, bass, percussion, and, occasionally, trombone, trumpet, violin, and saxophone. The band, whose name is reminiscent of speakeasies serving bootleg gin in ordinary tea cups to hide what was inside, has also been consistently ranked #1 in the region and in the Top 10 globally on the Reverbnation.com official “Jazz” charts for more than two years running!

 

 

The Affectionates

Durham-based band The Affectionates will bring an indie-rock and electronica sound to Spring Fest. The seven-member group formed in 2014 and released its first EP titled “What to Build, What to Destroy,” in May 2016. A full-length album is expected to be released in 2017.

 

 

Saludos Compay

Bringing a Latino influence to the Spring Fest sound, Saludos Compay, founded in 2004, performs traditional, contemporary, and original music from countries and islands throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. Frontman Pablo Valencia hails from Chile, but the group is based in the Triangle and plays Afro-Cuban sones, Brazilian bossa novas, and Colombia cumbias. 

 

 

The Amateurs

Veterans to Raleigh, The Amateurs have been performing their “original rock n’ reggae” around the Triangle since 1985. The band covers songs like Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” and Bob Marley’s “Stir it Up,” and also performs originals as well, all with a unique rock-reggae sound.

 

 

The Beast

Durham-based hip-hop and jazz ensemble The Beast is in its ninth year and is known for pushing boundaries with carefully crafted lyrics. The quartet has executed a Duke-University commissioned big band project, toured Panama, and is now finishing its second full-length album. Emcee Pierce Freelon has taught in the Departments of Music and of African, African American, and Diaspora Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, co-founded the Beat Making Lab — an Emmy-award winning PBS web-series — and created Blackspace, a digital maker space.

*Video below contains explicit lyrics

 

 

Chatham County Line

Headlining Spring Fest, Raleigh-based, bluegrass band Chatham County Line is no stranger to the music scene. The group, formed in 1999, has performed at MerleFest, which often sees crowds of 75,000, released 8 albums, toured the U.S. and Europe, and is opening for The Avett Brothers this summer for one of their shows at Red Rocks Amphitheatre.The quartet includes Dave Wilson, John Teer, Chandler Holt, Greg Readling and a variety of instruments including guitar, harmonica, mandolin, fiddle, banjo, bass, pedal steel, and piano. Chatham County Line’s newest album, Autumn, was released in September 2016.

 

 

 

All bands will perform on the Spring Fest Main Stage and the lineup is as follows:

 

Tea Cup Gin                        12:00 p.m. - 12: 45 p.m.

The Affectionates                1:15 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Saludos Compay                 2:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

The Amateurs                      4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

The Beast                             5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Chatham County Line         7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.