Third Eye Blind, Lupe Fiasco, Mt. Joy, the Commodores and the best and worst of Day 3 of Summerfest 2022's Weekend 2
Summerfest 2022 wrapped up its second weekend Saturday with some familiar faces and yet another day of surprisingly good weather.
Here's some of the best and worst of what festgoers heard on the grounds Saturday.
Third Eye Blind
Celebrating the 25th anniversary of its self-titled debut album, Third Eye Blind started with the visual at the UScellular Connection Stage Saturday night: lots of lights, drummer Brad Hargreaves on a very high drum riser, and lead singer Stephan Jenkins dressed all in white.
Perhaps trying to be an American variation on David Bowie’s Thin White Duke or a California variation on a K-pop star, Jenkins was definitely the center of the quintet’s set, and something to stare at when the vaguely alt-rock music couldn’t hold the attention.
And it frequently couldn’t, whether the approach was a three-guitar riff-o-rama not reminiscent enough of Drive-By Truckers, a basic pop cookie like “Never Let You Go,” or the third-rate Foo Fighters overdrive of “Narcolepsy.” Badly pacing the more stimulating songs like “Graduate” within a regularly decelerating performance, Third Eye Blind showed its age, badly.
— Jon M. Gilberson, Special to the Journal Sentinel
Lupe Fiasco
By this point, Lupe Fiasco is a Summerfest staple.
The Chicago-born rapper is a tried and true headliner known for his energetic sets and ability to work a crowd — and his Saturday night performance at the Miller Lite Oasis was no exception.
As the show began, the hitmaker asked the audience a simple question: “How many old-school Lupe Fiasco fans we got out here tonight?” Hundreds of woos happily answered as he started working the crowd.
Fans were already moving and grooving at the start of the show, but “Touch the Sky” really got people going. After all, old-school, pre-crazy Kanye West is always a crowd-pleaser. Fiasco fanatics continued to turn up to “Superstar,” “Daydreamin’ ” and “The Show Goes On.”
Midway through his set, Fiasco gave the spotlight (and microphone) to Milwaukee artist and activist Fatima Laster, who encouraged local fans to visit 5 Points Art Gallery on Milwaukee's north side.
Fiasco’s 70-minute performance was short but sweet, and we already know he’ll be back next year. At this rate, he’ll likely headline the Big Gig for as long as he’s making music.
— Lauren Keene, Special to the Journal Sentinel
RELATED:Here's the Summerfest 2022 lineup by date, time and stage for the Milwaukee music festival
Mt. Joy
An overflowing crowd hopped up on the benches and picnic tables in front of the Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard as the members of Mt. Joy emerged from an orange fog and frontman Matt Quinn began strumming out the chords of “Lemon Tree.”
The song soon swelled to a stomping rocker as the five-piece rock band built out a multilayered melody in front of a stage set with glowing orbs. Quinn’s vocals wandered from a delicate line of psychedelia to a growling crescendo. It was quite an energetic and exciting journey.
And that was just the first song.
“How’s everybody doing?” Quinn said, mentioning it was their first Big Gig stop. “You’re looking pretty good, Summerfest. Let’s have fun.”
With the creative, joy-filled set list that followed, it would have been hard not to.
The chorus of “Jenny Jenkins” teased a slow turn before a sparse guitar strum gave way to a bouncing swell of music and the bouncing heads in the crowd. “Let Loose” was a building, bluesy burn that drove atop Jackie Miclau’s organ runs and Sam Cooper’s soulful, impassioned guitar lines before building to a raucous crescendo on the back of Sotiris Eliopoulis’ thundering drums that marked just the beginning of extended jam.
As the large crowd roared and a big grin beamed from Quinn’s face, it was clear Mt. Joy’s first Big Gig won’t be its last.
— Erik Ernst, Special to the Journal Sentinel
The Commodores
Purveyors of 1970s funk and soul the Commodores went on at the daunting hour of 9:30 p.m. at the Uline Warehouse. Many of Summerfest's baby boomer and Gen-X acts noticeably have been moving to earlier performance times to attract said groups to their shows.
But the Commodores still played to a full Uline audience. The nine-piece band, with only three of the group's original members, bombarded the exceptionally diverse audience with hit after hit.
By the second song, everyone was standing; by the third, "Easy," nearly everyone was dancing.
Shiny sequined suits and original choreography hit everyone right in their nostalgic hearts. There was an overwhelming amount of crowd participation and general rambling, but everyone seemed to love it.
— Damon Joy, Special to the Journal Sentinel
KC and the Sunshine Band
It was the atmosphere of a Saturday night party at the BMO Harris Pavilion, and KC and the sprawling 14-piece Sunshine Band provided the soundtrack.
Sequined and feather-boa-wrapped dancers twirled across the stage, the horn section blasted out a brassy melody and dual percussionists pounded out a funky groove.
“Are you ready to do a little dance? Ready to make a little love? Ready to get down?” Harry Wayne Casey, the band’s frontman and namesake asked. The large, boisterous crowd answered loudly in the affirmative, and shook their booties as the band played 1976’s appropriately titled “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty.”
In a spangled vest, Casey stood at the center of the stage as master of ceremonies, pounding at a keyboard below a sparkling disco ball. The Florida native danced and strutted vigorously as he belted out “Boogie Shoes” and told the crowd he had had a cold all week that couldn’t stop him from making it to Summerfest:
“I’m 71 years old. What the hell happened? Getting down tonight is not so hard, but getting back up isn’t so easy.”
It was the first of a litany of yuks that accented a mostly bright and boisterous set, only occasionally slowed down for an indulgent ballad like “It Happens Every Night” and “Please Don’t Go,” both of which revealed the vocal affects of Casey's current illness. But, soon, the band was rocking again and the crowd was back dancing in the aisles.
— Erik Ernst , Special to the Journal Sentinel
RELATED:28 must-see acts at Summerfest 2022 in Milwaukee, from Lil Wayne to Zach Bryan to Halsey
The Village People
It was 45 years ago that two New York record producers asked Broadway actor Victor Willis to record four songs for a project they were starting. That project was The Village People and, at the time, Willis was the only Village Person when stardom struck and the cheekily costumed group needed to be built to fill a dance card of TV and concert appearances.
Saturday night at the BMO Harris Bank Pavilion, Willis — now playing the role of the group’s police officer after regaining the rights to the band’s name through legal disputes — led the newest lineup of that group through a disjointed cavalcade of disco songs that have become pop-culture icons.
Performing in front of a tight five-piece band, the five supporting vocalists danced and harmonized behind Willis, who paced around the stage, singing a cover of “All Night Thing” as the music thumped.
“Macho men say ‘Yeah!’ ” Willis shouted before asking the band if they were ready. Despite a bit of a collective and aloof shrug in response, the group lurched, writhed and flexed with vigor to the similarly named familiar disco track.
The crowd did scream when the group’s construction worker removed his shirt to reveal rippling abs. But that didn’t last, as he quickly put the shirt back on when the song ended. (The breeze is always cooler by the lake, after all.)
Willis’ voice was still powerful when he sang, but he often seemed like he was going through the motions. The full act was dated in a not-so-nostalgic way.
Like so much of the familiar-sounding music of The Village People’s catalog, the show was monotonous. If you saw Willis singing in front of his five costumed compatriots on one song, you saw everything they had up their sleeves — or in this case, lack of sleeves. After a way-too-extended band introduction segment, the crowd was rewarded with a chance to dance along to “In the Navy” and the ubiquitous “Y.M.C.A.” with the group who made it famous.
But honestly, at this point, it’s more fun at a ballgame.
— Erik Ernst
BoDeans
When BoDeans were introduced at the Johnson Controls World Sound Stage Saturday evening, one smart aleck bellowed, “There’s only one BoDean!”
He wasn’t entirely wrong: Of the two guys who founded the Waukesha-originated originated rock ’n’ roll outfit in the 1980s, only Kurt Neumann was there.
The other guy, Sam Llanas, departed in 2011; in 2018, Llanas denied assertions by Neumann's stepdaughter that he had repeatedly molested her when she was a child. But Llanas' reedy presence remained a missed shadow amid songs that were the roots-rock equivalents of burgers and fries served by moderately motivated counter jockeys.
Even so, the crowd was large enough to make a bystander question the wisdom of putting this band at one of Summerfest's less-spacious side stages. And fan favorites like “Dreams” and “Only Love” hadn’t gone particularly stale or soggy with the passage of decades. Whether they were being played by BoDeans or BoDean and Co. didn’t matter.
— Jon M. Gilbertson
Buffalo Nichols
Carl Nichols was too good to restrict his talents to Milwaukee.
The Houston native didn’t even display the full potential of his gifts when he first lived here, only showcasing his gravelly, soulful voice and cutting lyrics in folk duo Nickel & Rose long after he’d already supplied his guitar services for multiple bands in town.
These days, he’s a solo blues artist in Austin, Texas — Buffalo Nichols — with an album on Fat Possum Records, several tour dates with the Drive-By Truckers and a “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” appearance under his belt.
Saturday afternoon, he came home to play Summerfest’s Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard, showing that his skills have gotten even sharper since he left.
That self-titled album is striking but rather sparse — some of the recordings were actually demos. Aside from some occasional accompaniment from a jazz-seasoned drummer Saturday, Nichols created a sonic feast on his guitar for the grim and gripping “Sick Bed Blues,” “Living Hell” and a more haunted rendition of “Another Man,” a song incorporating some personal experience about the impact of the tragic, generational cycle of violence on Black people, first written when he was in Nickel & Rose.
Songs like that one — and a damning criticism of police as he left the stage — demonstrated his unflinching determination to speak truth to power. And as his talent, and profile, grow, so too will his impact.
— Piet Levy, plevy@journalsentinel.com