St. Ignatius's The Eye: Volume LXXIX Number II

Feeling Better than Everfine, that was my initial reaction upon leaving the 3rd Annual Everfine Festival at the Tower City Amphitheater, a 12-hour festival celebrating local legends O.A.R. (Of a Revolution). This tradition came to be two years ago when Everfine Records held its first ever festival here in Cleveland on July 6, 2002. The inaugural festival boasted and attendance of only 4,100 and featured six bands of lesser notoriety on the bill. Now, two years later, the festival nearly tripled its attendance rate and featured bigger names including the likes of Howie Day and Maroon 5. Although O.A.R. headlined the festival, Howie Day was the most notable performer, playing such hits as "Collide" and "Perfect Time of Day" off his most recent record release, Stop All The World Now, both of which gained radio play and an occasional TRL appearance. Even with all the hype that Howie had coming into the show, O.A.R. clearly stole the show playing, not once, but twice throughout the day. They opened up the fest with a short acoustic set and closed with a sick performance. Blending types of music as rock, reggae and folk, O.A.R. produces a unique sound that they have dubbed "island vibe roots rock". O.A.R. might sound familiar and that's probably because they are all graduates of The Ohio State University where they started to rock out with songs like "Crazy Game of Poker", "Hey Girl", and "City on Down." Throughout this festival there were twelve performers including "The Clarks", "Virginia Coalition", "Ingram Hill", "Michael Tolcher", "Antigone Rising", Toothpick", Ordinary Peoples", "Louque", and "ZOX". All of these groups have the potential to be the next big thing, but the band that really blew me away was "Ingram Hill," who just nationally dropped their CD, June's Picture Show, at nine dollars a pop--a steal for any CD. When listening to them perform, the songs that hit me were "Will I Ever Make It Home?" and "She's Almost Perfect," both of which are amazing songs. Another notable performer was "Toothpick," a solo artist with a different twist on his music; he raps and yet still maintains that jam band sound with his acoustic guitar. All the other bands performed superbly except the one band that almost no one wanted to rock out to, "Antigone Rising," a chick band from New York that had no noteworthy songs or big performances in their past. After finding my way back to the rapid to make it home at 12:30, I knew I got every penny's worth for the 35-dollar ticket and twelve hours of great music.