Funky Flavor at Fool’s Paradise Florida! (Photos)
I love a good day festival. Especially ones in really cool places with lots of shade and a stellar lineup to boot, which is exactly what Fool’s Paradise was. For a first-time show, it really was set up really nicely. Hosted at the St. Augustine Amphitheater just minutes from the beach, Fool’s Paradise brought the funk to the oldest city in the country. It can be challenging to get that “festie” vibe at a day festival with no camping, especially when you only have two short days to work with. But between the venues, a great assortment of food trucks, artist excursions, and a crowd that was jazzed to be there, I would say it went off pretty well for their first run.
Obviously, Fool’s was all about the funk. It was Lettuce’s festival in conjunction with our friends at Live for Live Music, so you know it was going to be good. Basically every opportunity they had to play, they took, with multiple collaborations and projects going on. There was so much Lettuce we all were basically vegetarians. I’m not complaining.
The weekend started on Friday with early sets on the Shipwreck Stage from local Florida boys Morning Fatty and Love Chunk. As people began to show up, we were treated to one of the many eclectic funk-fusion acts of the weekend, Marvel Years. One of my favorite things about this festival was the way the fused together really great genres of music. While a lot of people might listen to performers like Marvel Years (or even other artists on the bill such as Goldfish, GriZ and Brasstracks) and think they are just a DJs, this is definitely not the case. Funk makes you want to dance. Electronic dance music makes you want to dance. So when you get these awesome fusions with someone who is dropping really amazing beats between busting out a saxophone, trombone or any other instrument, you’re in for a huge treat (and lots of body moving).
The dancing continued with Goldfish, a production duo from South Africa who have been taking the world by storm recently. As mentioned, these guys bust out every instrument you can think of between their electronic beats, from the sax to a standup bass and everything in between. They have a really amazing energy when they perform, and are a lot of fun to watch as well as listen to. We also got treated to a really fun late night set from these guys, but more on that later.
Friday night was one of those nights where you go to see music at a festival and you don’t really realize just how much awesomeness is in store until it starts happening. It seemed like there was ALWAYS more. The more on this night was Lettuce, and lots of them. They played one of their stand-alone sets, which as usual was just amazing, before the co-headliner for the night, GriZ, took the stage.
GriZ is one of those artists where you can listen to him, and you think you get it, and then you see him live and it’s something completely different and WAY better than you could have ever imagined. Not only does he drop the bass like nobody’s business, but he runs around blaring his saxophone with more energy than anyone should have that late at night. And as promised, the GriZ/Lettuce collaboration of insanely funky proportions. But wait, there’s more!
And interesting aspect of this festival, albeit seemingly confusing for most people, were the late-night sets. They were separate from the main festival, though part of the official lineup, and held right next door at the Elk’s Lodge. You had to have separate tickets for these events, which seemed to have been missed by a lot of the festival attendees. After the confusion of this subsided and everyone was inside, what you got was an awesomely intimate venue that felt a lot like a house party in someone’s basement… but in a really amazing way. On one end of the large room you had a small stage where we got to enjoy sets from Vulfpeck (with special guests Cory Henry of Snarky Puppy and Antwan Stanley) as well as Break Science (a super fun project with Lettuce drummer Adam Deitch and Borahm Lee) on Friday night, with a second set by Goldfish (boy that was fun) and the ultimate in jams with the Fools of Funk Supergroup (members of Lettuce, Snarky Puppy, and The Nth Power as well as our great friend Christian Ryan on that sexy sax). We were also treated to amazing visual art complements of Because of the Lotus. There are few things that are much cooler than live painting AND projection mapping, and these guys always come full force with both. They gathered a crowd of people who were just mesmerized by what they were creating for us in the lodge.
Saturday also brought the heat, both of the funk and weather variety. There are few places that you can enjoy festivals almost year-round, but Florida is one of them. The forecast initially promised rain (which wouldn’t have been terrible since the amphitheater is covered, extra points!) but it held off, and we got nothing but sunny skies all day long. Which was great news for those who participated in the artist excursions. Want to go play putt-putt with Jesus Coomes? OK. Zip-lining with Borahm Lee perhaps? Done. Or maybe some sailing with Shady Horns? You got it.
When that was done, people were right back into the music. Fool’s did a great job repping the local Florida funk flavor, because some of my favorites from the guys of The Groove Orient and Herd of Watts took over the Shipwreck stage to kick things off for us on Saturday afternoon. Quickly followed by more bass in your face from Brasstracks.
Like I mentioned before, it really just was an overload of awesome. The Nth Power belted out a great rendition of The Beatles’ “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” and there was another amazing set from Vulfpeck (again with special appearances from Antwan Stanley… and a wedding!). A really special treat was the Chris Robinson Soul Revue. This super group is comprised, of course, of Chris Robinson (formerly of the Black Crowes), George Porter Jr. on bass, Nikki Glaspie on drums, keyboardist Ivan Neville, Eric Krasno and Neal Casal on guitars and The Shady Horns, and they were joined by Artist-at-Large Cory Henry. You really can’t beat that (and you can take a listen courtesy of Live for Live Music here). Oh, and more Lettuce. Always the Lettuce.
We certainly are looking forward to get our funk on again next year! We hope to see you there!
And if you find yourself in the St. Augustine area again this Saturday (April 16), be sure to check out the MindSpring Music Festival at the St. John’s County Fairgrounds.
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