On Saturday, Kansas City celebrated the 6th annual Crossroads Music Fest. Unfortunately, Kansas City was celebrating a bajillion other concerts that night including a doozy of a reunion tour with Pavement at the Uptown. Fortunately, that didn’t stop Kansas City from coming out in force to the Crossroads District to support both established and uprising acts in the local scene. 
The Crossroads Music Fest featured 24 local bands spread out on six stages in the Crossroads District. Think of it as a mini SXSW, but with air conditioning, space to breathe and just a Kansas City focus. And when the lede said that Kansas City “celebrated” that was not an exaggeration. The patrons of this fest clutched their locally brewed Boulevard pint glasses at some great local venues that many were experiencing for the first time, while listening to local music. For this little venue-hopper, that was especially true. As much as I love local music, every band I opted to watch this particular evening, I was seeing for the first time.
Like many others, I began in the Press Bar at Crosstown Station with Howard Iceberg and the Titanics. For an early set time of 6:30 p.m., the room had a good turn out. Nearly all the seats were taken and others were lining the walls. This early in the game though, no one seemed brave enough to go stand directly front, which worked out better for the alt country, folk rock tunes. The band was all smiles as they plucked away at their guitars, casually talking to their audience inbetween. It was pleasant, but not really my genre-liking, so I ventured off to the Brick in hopes of finding something a little more with a rock edge.
The Press Bar is a new venue with lots of windows that let natural light pour into the venue. The band’s had to created the intimacy in the big room. In stark contrast, the Brick is a boxy venue with Christmas lights draped around the room and behind the stage. Warm, earthy colors cover the walls and the ceiling is decked out in beer pictures. The contrast between the venues was just one of the cool things about this festival – each place was a new atmosphere, a new sound, and it did force you out of your regular bubble to discover something new that didn’t know you liked.
I learned that the Brick is my type of venue. I like the comfortable feeling of a place that has been worn in a little like your go-to pair of Chucks. I returned to this venue probably more so than any other venue of the night. I watched the rock trio Faster Horses (listed in the program as Fater Horses) here and then later, had the pleasure of finally seeing Ad Astra Arkestra with a packed house later in the night. This band is all that’s right with local music. Happy faces, happy audiences, lots of dancing and great vibes. There were six to seven people crammed on the tiny stage hopping around between different percussion instruments. It was tribal at times, but if there was a sound to express the vibe of the entire festival, this was it. Do yourself a favor: go to an Ad Astra show.
Of course, Ad Astra wasn’t until closer to the end of the night. I had the opportunity to discover lots of other local bands that I had never seen before. Nomathmics got me dancing at the Czar Bar, Thee Water Moccasins drew me to a stage set up in the alley with a song that was reverberating off the walls of the Kansas City Star (They sounded like how I wish the Kings of Leon still sounded), and the Grisly Hand taught me that I could even dance to folk rock.
Of course, there were some bands that I had to sadly miss such as The Wires and Hearts of Darkness, who packed Crosstown Station to a one in, one out door policy. I do have to hand it to festival founder, Bill Sundahl (his band The Columns also performed), for putting together such an amazing, relaxed showcase of local talent. The bands were spaced out enough that if you did want to put forth the effort, you could almost make every act on the roster (Of course, if you’re like me you get too hooked on one band and can’t tear yourself away early from a set.) And you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone say that a band was a disappointment. Everything I saw and heard were pleased venue-hoppers. I can’t wait to see what year seven brings.
