In case you haven’t heard, SunFest announced its initial lineup of headliners earlier this month for its 2011 festival, slated for April 27 to May 1 in downtown West Palm Beach. You can be blamed for missing the announcement; the March 3 news release found itself overshadowed by the immediacy of Festival of the Arts BOCA, the Miami Film Festival, the South Beach Comedy Festival and the overall embarrassment of cultural riches that constitutes spring in South Florida.
But SunFest is the best music festival in the tri-county area, and not just because it doesn’t have any competition (Ultra is good for a niche population only, and Langerado had a few halcyon years before biting the economic bullet). A lot of SunFest’s success has to do with the fact that it’s always an eclectic, big-tent music festival, jumping from jazz to hard rock to ‘70s funk to newly released indie rock in efforts to corral all music lovers under the same sonic umbrella.
The same is certainly true of this year’s lineup, perhaps more than ever. The headliners are as diverse as Jason Mraz, the cuddly singer-songwriter whose name can buy a vowel; Earth, Wind and Fire, the legendary R&B act; MGMT, the spaced-out indie-rock hipsters; Sublime, the ‘90s top reggae-tinged stoner band; Jeff Beck, the classic rock guitar god; and Cee Lo Green, the Gnarls Barkley pop sensation with a subversive soul hit whose name we can’t print.
Most festivals may claim to offer “something for everyone,†but SunFest is one of the few that actually delivers on that promise. There are risks to this approach. After all, a fan of the Avett Brothers’ style of Starbucks Americana (they play on April 27) probably isn’t the same target audience for emocore breakthroughs Taking Back Sunday (which plays Friday), which isn’t the same audience for “Mr. Roboto†rockers Styx (which plays Saturday).
But these catchall pairings of disparate-sounding acts can be a blessing, because they prompt audiences to try out sounds they would otherwise ignore. I wouldn’t have the interest to see acts like Ziggy Marley and Toad the Wet Sprocket on their own, but because they’re on the bill the same day as MGMT, I’m more inclined to check them out.
At its heart, SunFest is about expanding your horizons, a positive trait that can apply to life as much as music.
