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Parklife DC today announces the best in DC concerts with our inaugural awards program, named for our mascot, DC’s own state bird — the Wood Thrush. Our Thrushie Awards salute bands and venues in line with our mission to review live music concerts.
Congratulations to the 2018 Thrushie Awards winners, several of whom took their top spots from polling ran by Parklife DC over the last half of November.
A wood thrush! (Photo by Trish Gussler)
Parklife DC will honor DC bands and venues with our inaugural awards program, named for our new mascot, DC’s own state bird — the Wood Thrush. Our Thrushie Awards are inspired by our mission to review live music concerts.
Welcome to the 2018 Thrushie Awards! Parklife DC will name the best music festival of the year with your input. Vote for the best music festival in DC now through Dec. 1.
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Deryck Whibley fronts Sum 41 in a headlining performance at ShamrockFest 2018 at RFK Stadium on March 17, 2018. (Photo by Daniel Webb)
Sum 41, who hardly ever play around DC, headlined ShamrockFest 2018 on Saturday, giving me an opportunity relive childhood memories in a wonderful opportunity to see the band play live at the Festival Grounds at RFK Stadium.
ShamrockFest 2017 at RFK Stadium Festival Grounds (Photo by Danilo Lewis for ShamrockFest)
ShamrockFest, hailed as “America’s largest St. Patrick’s Day Festival, returns to RFK Stadium Festival Grounds on Saturday, March 17, with concert headliners Sum 41, Shaggy, and Less than Jake, along with performances from Reel Big Fish, Carbon Leaf, Street Dogs, Scythian, Barleyjuice, Kilmaine Saints, and more.
Scythian gets the crowd ready at ShamrockFest 2016
Herein lies a look at the music of ShamrockFest 2016.
Celkilt – I entered the ShamrockFest fray in time to see Celkilt, a Celtic rock band, on the Gold stage. The energy of their performance was enough to fire me and the nearby festival goers up for the day of music ahead. Even some of those had drank too much by this point… Celkilt is from Lyon, France and competed on the TV show, France Got Talent. I was intrigued by how much fiddle can be inserted into any given song.
Scythian – Which leads me to the band I most wanted to see (even after having seen them too many times to count). Scythian, a Celtic band led by the Fedoryka brothers (Alexander and Danylo) that started in DC at local Irish pubs like Finn MacCool’s (RIP) and Fado, is a fiddle enthusiasts dream.
They started a bit slowly, easing in to the set, but quickly picked up the thread of dance and fiddle with the foot-stomping, “Hey Mama Ya”. Their St. Patrick Day sing-a-long, “Galway Girl”, won over anyone that hadn’t yet heard of them. While “Dance All Night” and the bare knuckle brawler, “Jack Dempsey”, simply gave the eager masses crowded around the Green stage no quarter and no time to stand still. I will say that this wasn’t the best performance by Scythian (some of their 9:30 Club shows could claim that honor), yet their set imbued the spirit of Celtic music, and is always a joy to experience.
ShamrockFest goes green
What is ShamrockFest? Held every year at the RFK Stadium Festival Grounds (aka the parking lot), it presents an interesting enigma.
If you take your cue from the revelers that attend every year (now 17 editions strong!), then you can easily look around and say it is about having fun with friends and letting go of inhibitions.
It is about dressing up in bright green, with shamrock logos, kilts or skimpy outfits. It is about basking in the waves of sounds, with fiddles, horns, guitars and drums. It is about dancing. It is about loitering with friends and enjoying yourself. It is about helping those said friends stand when they had just a wee bit too much… It is about hoisting a pint and saluting those about to rock. It is many things and more.
2016 was my 4th foray into the odyssey that is ShamrockFest (including three of the last five years).
On Saturday, March 12th, the 17th Annual ShamrockFest hits the RFK Stadium Festival Grounds with an epic amount of green and Irish music.
Your local Irish heroes, Scythian, will be playing at 5:30pm, along with plenty of other bands, notably Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys.
And Mr. Van Winkle himself, aka Vanilla Ice, will also rock the mic like a vandal. Paired with an Irish Coffee, things could get very interesting. (Irish Vanilla Ice Coffee?)
Here are 17 reasons you should go this year!
ShamrockFest 2016
RFK Stadium Festival Grounds
Saturday, March 12, 2016
Festival: 3-11pm
General: $29.99 (or $24.99 with purchase of 4+ tics)
VIP: $74.99+ (21+ only)
All ages
Scythian perform in Dublin, Ohio, on Aug. 4, 2014. (Photo by Paul and Cathy)
We know that Saint Patrick’s Day is a little over four months away yet, but given how warm it is this DC weekend, it’s hard not to think of that portal to Spring that comes with waves of green.
And so it is that exactly three months from tomorrow, on March 12, 2016, you will have an opportunity to celebrate with ShamrockFest, returning again to the grounds of RFK Stadium.
As announced recently, ShamrockFest will feature headliners Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly as well as Street Dogs, Scythian, Go Go Gadjet, Fighting Jamesons, and more than 25 additional bands, DJs, and performers across six stages.
Gaelic Storm
It is clear, after attending the 2015 edition of ShamrockFest, that I need to get myself to Galway, Ireland.
Because the girls.
Scythian, DC’s native purveyor of Irish tunes, crooned ‘and I lost my heart to a Galway girl’, in a lively cover of Steve Earle’s “Galway Girl”. Then later, Gaelic Storm performed their brand new “Girls Night in Galway”, an ode to the multitude of bachelorette parties that festoon the city.
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ShamrockFest is an exercise in excess. An excessive amount of Irish and Celtic music. An excessive number of people dressed in elaborate green costumes. An excessive desire to visit Galway (for me, at least).
Strolling around the RFK Stadium Festival Grounds, there is no question that DC loves St. Patrick’s Day. Taking a cue from Carbon Leaf’s dance ready “The Donnybroke Affair”, you might describe ShamrockFest as ‘a rough-n-tumble free-for-all’ and ‘a ruckus to be reckoned with’.
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Festival goers were ready for a day of music and beer. I would guess a large percentage of the sold-out crowd partook in the VIP package, which included access to an expansive VIP area and bottomless beer within.
The VIP area spread between the Gold stage and the Green stage. Aside from the dedicated beer stalls and a small DJ booth, it also provided cordoned off and up-close access to both stages. The lines for beer were so long that Red Frog Events eventually opened up VIP member’s access to all festival beer stands. Which then made all the lines long. We want our beer.
The sprawling Festival Grounds is not attractive (after all, it is a parking lot), but the three stages and the electronic tent were spaced apart so that you never felt overwhelmed by crowd movements and spontaneous dancing.
The beer selection was small, but with three choices and a cider (Guinness, Guinness Blond, Yuengling and Angry Orchard Cider), it was both appropriate and better than many festivals. The food offered was nothing beyond typical festival fare to further the St. Patrick’s Day theme. But Bailey’s Irish Coffee was on offer. Yes and thank you.
Other activities included Bear Pong (an outsized version of the classic beer pong) and Cornhole hosted by NAKID Social Sports. There were also stalls selling green things, kilts and alcohol infused cigars. Nice. There could have been more to do, if you wanted a break from the music.
The music options were an eclectic mix of Irish standards, electronic dance, covers, folk, fiddles, Celtic songs and a pinch of blues (Traveler) thrown in for good measure.
I was able to listen to a good number of bands on the Gold, Green and Dewey Beach stages, and did also poke my head into the DJ tent (Electric Isle).
The main complaint for the Electric Isle tent was there was a sizable pool of water in the middle, towards the back, courtesy of the rain from the previous day. People danced around it.
Here is my music lineup and brief notes on each.