PHOTOS BY AMY NELSON
Third time’s the charm for the Minnesota Yacht Club music festival held Friday through Sunday on St. Paul’s Harriet Island along the Mississippi River. The now-annual event held the third weekend in July debuted two years ago and has quickly become a Minnesota must-do for outdoor concert fans. With a hot lineup of up-and-coming bands like Geese and popular headliners including the Lumineers and the Strokes, each day offered 10 bands on two stages, in scorching heat and hazy skies.
Here are some hits and misses of the weekend, including some comparisons with the Winnipeg Folk Festival, which I also attended the weekend before in Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. That four-day festival set in remote Birds Hill Park has a much longer tenure and history than that of Yacht Club but has featured several acts who have played in St. Paul in the past. Lucy Dacus was the headliner on the second day at Canada’s event while she performed on the second stage this weekend in Minnesota. Soaring temperatures were an issue the weekend of the folk festival as well, followed by extreme heat and forest fires in nearby Ontario that made the air quality in Minnesota dangerously poor.
HITS: LOCAL BANDS AND STAGE SETUP
One of the highlights of the Yacht Club fest is its mix of big-name acts and emerging stars, both local and national. Locals Prize Horse and Night Moves shared stages with the Black Keys and Shakey Graves on Friday, while Porch Light and Yam Haus were on the same marquee with Matchbox Twenty and Lord Huron on Saturday. Semisonic’s smash “Closing Time” wasn’t even the final song of the day on Sunday, in fact there were four more bands after that. I love the opportunity to discover new (to me) bands or realize I like someone’s songs way more than I thought I did (looking at you, Cage the Elephant).
The fest grounds and stage configuration of Yacht Club also deserve all the snaps. While the Skipper stage hosts the headliners and offers special access for VIP ticket holders and Very VIP (labeled Premium) to see the show, the Crow’s Nest stage is nearby and allows concert-goers the luxury of picking one spot to set up camp (blankets only) and pivot between sets and hear each band and see them on the video screens. For those in one of the VIP sections, there’s even stadium seating with a view of both stages.
Props, too, for no overlapping sets that require fans to pick one band to watch if two of their favorites may be playing at the same time. When one band ends on one stage, the next band starts up within minutes, on the other. I wished that could happen in Winnipeg, but it’s too spread out. When the super-hot band Canadian band Angine de Poitrine played on the second stage without video displays about a half-mile away from Dacus’ set, it was one or the other, not both for me, because of the logistics. (I chose Angine de Poitrine knowing I would see Dacus in St. Paul.)
Another positive aspect of Yacht Club is the impressive professionalism of the staff, security and vendors. C3 Presents, owned by Live Nation, knows what it’s doing. It runs some of the largest music festivals worldwide, including Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo and even introduced the Minnesota Country Club Festival the week before Yacht Club this year also at Harriet Island. In another Winnipeg connection, standout Jesse Welles performed that Friday in Winnipeg before playing the Country Club Festival the next day.
C3 took all that collective knowledge and has tweaked the formula over the past two years to avoid long lines for food and drink and had some solutions to deal with the heat, including air-conditioned city buses stationed near one entry and various misters and cooling stations. The bartenders were friendly, the security guards were well-trained and communication about the event was top-notch. I felt safe in a sea of 30,000 people and watched in awe as the medical staff quickly reacted to the many “help needed” cases throughout the weekend. Some people complained about The Strokes starting 10 minutes late on Sunday night but I watched at least four people pulled from the crowd in that time, which I think contributed to the delay.
MISSES: WHERE ARE THE WOMEN AND MY WALLET
There definitely seemed like fewer misses—meaning female performers—this year compared with previous years. The inaugural year was packed with strong performances by Gwen Stefani, Joan Jett, and Alanis Morrisette. This year, it was mainly the aforementioned Dacus, Jensen McRae, singer Jackie Uhas of Porch Light, and drummer Kim Schifino of Matt and Kim who were front and center. I certainly would like to see more female representation.
The cost of the entire weekend was another sore point. Yes, prices are higher everywhere for basics like gas and food, and a music festival is certainly a splurge, but if you hope to see some of your favorite bands all in one spot, you shouldn’t have a take out a small loan to afford it. The $20 pizzas and $25 cocktails (with tip) and $20-$30 parking costs just add to an already expensive outing. Food and drink prices were much more reasonable in Winnipeg, and single-day and multi-day tickets were lower as well, so it is possible. Overall, I will admit spending about $300 to see 30 bands over three well-organized days is a fairly good value and the pros outshine the cons, so I am already looking forward to who will be performing at next year’s festival.
