Great Outdoors Jam: Your Pre-Fourth of July Fireworks!
The Great Outdoors Jam just released the music schedule for this third edition, at the beautiful Fields of Renninger’s in Mount Dora FL. Music begins at 4 PM on Thursday, June 30th, and continues until dark on Sunday, July 3rd. The Great Outdoors Productions and Don’t Fret Entertainment are excited to welcome you to four days of music, art, camping, and fellowship with family… and with outstanding music all four days!
There are three stages ready for GOJ. For all but late-night activity, music will alternate between the Hometeam Stage and the Great Outdoors Stage. The Acoustic Stage will allow music to continue until the wee hours at lower volume but just as much fun.
THURSDAY
Thursday’s festivities kick off at 4 PM with Teen Girl Squad. You can try to figure how they match up with the Cheerleader, So-and-So, What’s-Her-Face, and the Ugly one; half of Displace, a third of Future Vintage and an interloping keyboard player are in the band!
From there, shoeless soul brings their “Prozac pop” to the fest; they’ve been playing tremendous sets every time out. Augusta’s Funk You plans to do exactly that. Joose is yet another project of Christian Ryan’s, this one playing fusion jazz.
Voodoo Visionary (Atlanta) will channel their “improvisational funk and dance grooves” into a ‘70s set, followed by Backup Planet from Nashville. These boys blew us away at Hometeam New Year’s Rally and at AURA Music & Arts Festival. Both bands also play again on Saturday — double-dipping!
Free Range Strange gets the first workout on the Acoustic Stage, and that should put a great exclamation point on the opening day of GOJ. Consider resting up afterward. You’re going to need your strength the next three days!
FRIDAY
Free the People, from Orlando, really twisted some heads at the recent Orange Blossom Jamboree with some very hip prog and psychedelic music. Then the first of the Athens invaders, Universal Sigh, shows off their “metamorphic rock” (love that description!). Boxcar Hollow brings their amalgam of Americana, bluegrass and country funk to the stage from St. Petersburg.
Justino and the Difference are cranking out fusion and rock in equal measures, all of it funky. Justino just toured Russia with Electrik Rendezvou!. We doubt we need to explain jamchronica to you; that’s what Tweed is packing from Philly (oh, and Newark DE, too). And it is unlikely you will find funk any deeper than that splashed everywhere by The Juanjamon Band. Juanjamon just blew it out on a ridiculous tour with the Joe Marcinek Band. Meanwhile, be certain you check out on of the nastiest guitar players you might not know yet, playing with Juanjamon: Dre Mack. Just sayin’…
Displace is gearing up for the release party for their second album on June 25th at the Crowbar in Ybor City, and they killed at OBJ. The boys from The Fritz (Asheville) always have the green light to play in Florida: last year’s GOJ, Hometeam New Year’s and AURA, for starts. More ridiculous funk from both bands.
Aqueous made their first Florida incursion at AURA and are excited to bring their high-energy groove rock back to the Sunshine State from Buffalo. They are in the midst of a summer with more than a dozen festivals, and today they introduced new drummer Rob Houk to us! They are playing a set of music by moe. (they have a second set Saturday).
Which brings us to Baltimore’s Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, headlining two nights with their outrageous funk and rock. Like the Fritz, they are welcome to Florida. ANY. TIME.
As music shifts to the Acoustic Stage, we get a double-dose of fun. First, Harmonica Man and the Sawgrass Band will make this one “special,” according to Trey ‘Harmonica Man’ Miller (the man behind Little Econ Love Fest) with their ‘psychedelic Americana blues-grass.’ The nonsense and smiles will continue with an interesting variation: the Legacy Acoustic Orchestra Collective. Nighty-night!
SATURDAY
Sarasota rockers Controlled Fall get first honors Saturday, with ‘electro-fusion jam’ from Atlanta duo Lucida next up. These two have been getting rave reviews; we can’t wait! Ajeva (Gulfport) has almost turned into a runaway stampede, riding high on the success of their new FUNK album Evolve.
Voodoo Visionary returns for round two of their groovin’ funk with hints of Southern rock. More great jam rock follows with Groove Fetish; this Wilmington NC quintet’s name tells you everything you need to know. And Backup Planet is also back to thrash us with deep, dark rock.
Broccoli Samurai from Cleveland is set to throw everybody into a jamtronic trance. They blew us away last year at The Big WHAT? Then it is Come Back Alice’s turn to infuse us all with their gypsy swamp funk (there is no known antidote, by the way). Tony and Dani will have returned from their recent honeymoon! Then Aqueous also returns for round two.
Holey Miss Moley has now set theirs sights on ‘90s hip-hop, so you might anticipate Danny Clemmons getting vocal help from a TY or a B-TB. It will be a great time, getting us set up once more for Pigeons Playing Ping Pong. And the acoustic evening continues with Oak Hay heading up a bluegrass jam, Fil Pate front and center.
SUNDAY
Yes, you’ve made it… so far. But you’re not done just yet!
Wild Root will only admit to being from ‘Southeastern USA,’ but we’ll enjoy their independent music no matter where they call home! Athens again represents in the form of The Orange Constant. They claim to play ‘somewhere between vintage and contemporary rock.’ Read our review of their new album Time to Go here.
Este Loves has always played great festival sets, but her OBJ performance was a thing apart, Este and band on musical steroids. You’ve been warned. And it’s probable you haven’t seen the Tony Tyler Band yet, a side project to have even more musical fun. Really looking forward to this one!
Atlanta’s groove rockers Copious Jones will also be in “the house;” they too are honorary Floridians, having played so many awesome shows and festivals for us. They’re in the midst of a tour that found them at Mountain Jam last weekend!
Russ Bowers Isn’t Dead finds the Receptor Sound and Lighting magician and Orange Blossom Jamboree host on guitar, having a Dead blast. It would be safe to anticipate another enormous stage-filled jam, exactly the way gloriously OBJ ended, probably with GOJ mastermind Kenny Blair on bass!
Find much more information on the official website.