doodledee

Last Friday I went down to the late night portion of the 24 Hours of Music event that the Minneapolis Orchestra has used to kick-off their Sommerfest season for the last couple of years. It's this deal where a bunch of different bands play a bunch of different types of music on a bunch of different stages from noon one day through noon the next. It's quite the eclectic mix of genres with rock, folk, classical, and the predictable middle-of-the-night jazz/blues space-out session just to name a few. I think there's even a trombone choir or something. Not sure what that's about.

It was a mint night out weather wise, which translated into big crowds for the both the shows outside on Peavey Plaza and the shows inside Orchestra Hall proper. Given the festive atmosphere, I was a little surprised at how mellow everyone was. I chalked that up to the older skewing audience and the hella expensive beers. It did get a little rowdy when the Basilica Block Party ended and the younger crowd migrated through, but nothing ridiculous or anything. Nice and smooth and laid back all around.

I was mainly there for the fancy indoor acoustic sets by Gary Louris (Jayhawks), Adam Levy (Honeydogs) and Brenda Weiler (uhh), but I got there early enough to watch the back half of Olympic Hopefuls' main-stage set and the first few songs of Haley Bonar before I went inside to find a seat. Can't argue with any of it.

Minnesota Orchestra Sommerfest Schedule [minnesotaorchestra]