This year marked Pasadena’s 8th annual Make Music Pasadena festival, a “free, all-day, all-ages music celebration that attracts an estimated attendance of 50,000.” According to its website, Make Music Pasadena is “California’s only musical festival that offers the unique opportunity to experience an immense range of quality music in varied urban settings at no cost.” Taking place in Downtown Pasadena, produced by the Old Pasadena Management District and the Playhouse District Association, and featuring more than 150 performers this year alone, Make Music Pasadena has been a success essentially since it’s conception. The festival is “modeled after the Fête de la Musique event that began in Paris in 1982 as a way to celebrate music by making all genres accessible to all people and taking music to the streets.” This year, festivities at the five main venues – and more than thirty supporting venues, including bars and hair salons – began at eleven in the morning and ended around two in the morning the following day, with most of the main stages shutting down around nine at night. With notable alumni like Warpaint, Best Coast, Ra Ra Riot, Grouplove, Grimes, and Sleeping at Last, UNTUCKED was thrilled to be a part of this year's festivities.
We arrived at noon, phones in hand and camera batteries fully charged, to pick up the passes that would grant us backstage access and entrance to photo pits. We decided to take a lap before settling down anywhere in particular, making our way from the noisy crowds of the Old Pasadena Colorado Stage to the vendor-heavy Playhouse District Stage, and back around to the grassy shade of the Levitt Pavilion Stage – the three places we spent the majority of our time. Along with bands, the Make Music Pasadena festival is also home to food trucks and various vendors selling their products, making it easy to spend the day wandering the streets without getting bored. Each group or solo act played for a little over a half an hour each, with another half an hour or so in between the performances to allow for set-up, breakdown, and sound check, giving crowds time to decide who they wanted to see next and walk, or shuttle, their way over to the next stage.
We stuck around the Old Pasadena Colorado Stage to wait for the band we were really at the festival to see – Hidden Charms. The boys were easily recognizable, all with shaggy hair, paisley - or otherwise outrageously patterned - shirts, and sunglasses on, standing around backstage waiting to go on after Belmont Lights. They seemed fun and casual, a vibe that they carried with them through their performance. Aesthetically, they look as though they’ve walked out of the pages of a sixties London fashion catalogue, and the girls standing at the front of the crowd were loving it (even more so when they realized these boys were in fact from London – and had the accents to prove it). Predicted to become one of the hottest new bands, Hidden Charms did not disappoint, and, surprisingly, their outfits did not distract from the quality of their sound. Their music is reminiscent of bands from decades past, but these days, their sound is similar to groups like Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys, and The Kooks. They only have a few songs currently posted on Soundcloud, but they are definitely worth a listen. The highlight of the set was lead singer Vincent jumping off stage and singing into the crowd while standing on the photo pit bench, but everything about them is deserving of praise.
You can read the rest of our coverage of Make Music Pasadena 2015 in
Volume I, Issue II of UNTUCKED coming this July.
We arrived at noon, phones in hand and camera batteries fully charged, to pick up the passes that would grant us backstage access and entrance to photo pits. We decided to take a lap before settling down anywhere in particular, making our way from the noisy crowds of the Old Pasadena Colorado Stage to the vendor-heavy Playhouse District Stage, and back around to the grassy shade of the Levitt Pavilion Stage – the three places we spent the majority of our time. Along with bands, the Make Music Pasadena festival is also home to food trucks and various vendors selling their products, making it easy to spend the day wandering the streets without getting bored. Each group or solo act played for a little over a half an hour each, with another half an hour or so in between the performances to allow for set-up, breakdown, and sound check, giving crowds time to decide who they wanted to see next and walk, or shuttle, their way over to the next stage.
We stuck around the Old Pasadena Colorado Stage to wait for the band we were really at the festival to see – Hidden Charms. The boys were easily recognizable, all with shaggy hair, paisley - or otherwise outrageously patterned - shirts, and sunglasses on, standing around backstage waiting to go on after Belmont Lights. They seemed fun and casual, a vibe that they carried with them through their performance. Aesthetically, they look as though they’ve walked out of the pages of a sixties London fashion catalogue, and the girls standing at the front of the crowd were loving it (even more so when they realized these boys were in fact from London – and had the accents to prove it). Predicted to become one of the hottest new bands, Hidden Charms did not disappoint, and, surprisingly, their outfits did not distract from the quality of their sound. Their music is reminiscent of bands from decades past, but these days, their sound is similar to groups like Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys, and The Kooks. They only have a few songs currently posted on Soundcloud, but they are definitely worth a listen. The highlight of the set was lead singer Vincent jumping off stage and singing into the crowd while standing on the photo pit bench, but everything about them is deserving of praise.
You can read the rest of our coverage of Make Music Pasadena 2015 in
Volume I, Issue II of UNTUCKED coming this July.
Article and photographs by Lizzie McDowell.