The Stoopid Rebelution Show

Last Saturday the Surf Roots team and I trucked it down to The Verizon Wireless Amphitheater to interview Slightly Stoopid, Rebelution & Don Carlos for the end of their Seedless Summer Tour. Slightly Stoopid was one of my favorite bands in high school, and I had never seen them live. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked for this interview and show. 

My first subject of the night was the Jamaican legend, Don Carlos. DC is one of the top "message" reggae singer in the world and Slightly Stoopid brought him along as their special guest. So during DC's interview he was sending a message of love to our viewers, only problem was I could understand about half of what he was saying.

Our next interview was with 3 of the 4 Rebelution boys. This band is the most humble and happy band I've ever interviewed, and having previously interviewed Eric, we picked up right where we left off...laughing. 

And the last interview of the night was with Ry-Mo the drummer of Slightly Stoopid.

After we finished the interviews our crew got to hang out backstage all night, and once the show started we were on stage rockin' our socks off :)

But at the end of the night, I have to say that Rebelution stole the show.

West Beach Music Festival 2010!

The West Beach Music Festival on Saturday September 25 in beautiful Santa Barbara, California had everything going for it. Not only were there amazing bands playing on three stages, but the weather was perfect, and it made for an unforgettable day at the beach. 

We were greeted by one of our favorite South Bay bands, Tomorrows Bad Seeds, as they performed their set in the beautiful afternoon sun. After their performance, we headed backstage to get some footage for SurfRoots.com. Thanks to Resin Music, I was able to spend a majority of the afternoon interviewing the bands as they hung out backstage, and spent time with fellow musicians. I basically interviewed anyone and everyone I could and I got some great interviews with several standouts in the world of California Reggae music like Rebelution and Tomorrow's Bad Seeds! You can see the footage at http://www.resinmusic.com/ !

After the festival, I met up with some old friends and headed to Velvet Jones in downtown Santa Barbara to catch yet another set by the Bad Seeds. Surprisingly the town was pretty dead, and there were not too many people out and about. Trying to have shows after an entire day's worth of music was probably just too much for most people to handle. Not us though! Our group raged throughout the night and we were all reminded of just how great the city of Santa Barbara can be.

I would say the only negative part of the West Beach Festival, was the lack of people in attendance. Even with headliners like UB40, Rebelution, and Soja, the attendance dwindled a little. It definitely was far from empty, but we were surprised at how few people were there for a "festival". I really hope that next year there are thousands more people in attendance, and the West Beach Festival lives up to it's true potential.