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In the article “SXSW’s Little Sister: Savannah Stopover Music Festival” published last week by the online culture magazine “PopMatters,” critic Raymond E. Lee waxed poetic about our upstart indie music festival.
“With an emphasis on indie, DIY and generally under recognized artists, Stopover could be considered the little sister to SXSW. Younger and arguably more attractive, she is still modest but getting increasingly harder to overlook,” wrote Lee.
“Better yet, Stopover isn’t ferreted away in the wastelands of an industrial sector or confined to a convention center and surrounding venues,” Lee added. “Stopover is a whole city event whose foot traffic between pre-war venues offers a walking tour glimpse of the South’s best preserved gothic cityscape.”
Writing for TrueBlue Magazine, critic Donovan Farley noted that he was “a bit taken aback” at the size of the crowd by the time the headliner The Weeks took the stage for Stopover’s free concert in Ellis Square.
This might have been the breakout year for Savannah Stopover, which seemed to see a surge in attendance.
Visitors who came to town for the stellar music were also generally impressed by the proximity of venues, the city’s walkability and the right to drink from to-go cups.
All those traits contributed to the welcoming nature of the festival, which is an extension of the hospitality of the entire city.
In “How Savannah Stopover music fest Stole My Heart” for the Asheville-based publication “Ashvegas,” writer Kathleen McCafferty gave a special shout out to Brian Huskey, the Gaslight Group restaurateur in charge of feeding bands and visiting press.
She described Huskey as a “Man among men, friend to all, Patron Saint of Hungry Girls.”
And now the 17-day Savannah Music Festival is in full swing.
On the festival’s opening weekend, all four of the shows that I attended were sold out: The Avett Brothers at Johnny Mercer Theatre, Preservation Hall Jazz Band at the Morris Center, Punch Brothers at Trustees Theater and Jason Isbell in the North Garden at the Ships of the Sea Maritime Museum.
The Savannah Music Festival is celebrating its 25th year, but about half its lifespan was as the Savannah Onstage International Arts Festival.
The festival as we know it is still coming into its own, and it will undoubtedly attract positive press from around the country and around the world.
I’ll be following up soon about some of those articles and reviews. March is certainly an exciting time to live in Savannah, and it’s certainly an exciting month to visit, too.
City Talk appears every Sunday and Tuesday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 E. 32nd St., Savannah, GA 31401.