Though many of Summerfest’s 700-some bands hail from other states (or countries, for that matter) many of the Big Gig’s more promising bookings were sired right here in Wisconsin, and were selected to play either as part of the “emerging artist” concert series at the U.S. Cellular Connection Stage or (more often) at the completely Wisconsin-bred Cascio Interstate Music Stage. Amid the stacked lineup of local talent selected to take to the Cascio, Sunday’s early afternoon bookings posed a highlight for local rock ‘n’ roll aficionados, with a trio of area talent – Sunday Flood, Scarlet Escape and Hot Coffin – stacked against one another. Music Notes braved the sun and took daylong residence at the Cascio confines to take in the shows.
After catching the waning seconds (and a demo) from the day’s opener Lost in a Name, I arrived well in advance to snag a good spot for 3 p.m. band Sunday Flood. Of course, at set’s beginning, I only had to fight 14 others for bleacher space. Born in 1995, when Summerfest was merely a festival in its late twenties with its whole festival life ahead of it, Appleton band Sunday Flood is no stranger to both Summerfest and the nuances of the Cascio stage. Playing a set heavily hinging on new borderline metal EP C47, the seasoned outfit provided an experienced and impassioned performance to the otherwise forgettable early afternoon slot… which fought for volume with cover band renditions of One Republic and Mumford & Sons songs at the nearby Summerfest Rock Stage.
Still, the experienced band played on, burying the adjacent audio the best it could via the sharp falsetto of singer Eric Krueger, fittingly abrasive guitar effects of Mike Allen and the more than capable rhythm section of bassist Dave Kiley and drummer Eric Laeyendecker. As Flood’s performance swelled, boiling over with an intense rendition of Bob Uecker-inspired “Jamjob,” the once-small crowd followed suit, building to easily a hundred. Flood followed that with the punishing double-bass and guttural screams “Outpatient Belongings” and a singalongable-though-unreleased song before calling it a day.
I may be biased in my assessment of 4:30 band, Scarlet Escape, with Music Notes’ own Kevin Kosterman serving as guitarist for the now semi-defunct (save for Summerest) group of half Appleton and half Milwaukee rockers. But they proved they deserved a slot on the big gig’s schedule. Showing few signs of prolonged layoff—aside from the occasionally misplaced lyric by frontman Joe DePaoli—Escape launched headfirst into an hour of yesteryear favorites that spanned the duration of the band’s true existence. Whether playing heavy-while deceivingly poppy opener “Out With The Old” or emotive split CD selection “Ballast,” the band… namely the ever-mobil axmanship of Kosterman and the aggressive snare thuds of drummer Mike St. Clair gave onlookers little choice but to tap their respective limbs, despite the unforgiving temperatures.
Lending a truly local edge to the Cascio Sunday rock block was new(ish) Milwaukee rock band Hot Coffin. Featuring parts from Cascio Stage alumnus Red Knife Lottery, Death Dream, Invade Rome and Farewell To Twilight, the experience was nothing new to the quartet. The instrumental chops of the outfit – heavily dependant on the meaty bass lines of Joe Kanack and incessant fret-meandering of Christian Hansen – only served to remind the now-respectably sized audience of this. The months-old band burst into its 40-minute set as frontman Sean Williamson screamed inaudibly to begin Hot Coffin intro, the tentatively named track “Rolling Bones.”
Instrumentally, Hot Coffin played a great set, as the tight-knit band channeled Queens Of The Stone Age meets something all its own. Lyrically, it succeeded as well, sparing the occasional between-song stream-of-conscious musings of Williamson, which ranged from dropping prohibited curse words, grandfather quotes like “You lose some, you lose some” to pouring High Life on his head. Still, Williamson came through, first, by hilariously thanking the distracted youth in the nearby Playstation 3 trailer before declaring they [were] our future, then by putting the final nail into an impressive inaugural Hot Coffin Summerfest performance.
Taking the scenic route back to the exit, I heard The BoDeans only single “Closer To Free” from behind the Potawatomi Bingo Casino Stage, which lent both a fitting conclusion to my day of entirely Wisconsin music, and granted an undeniable reminder to exactly how far Badger State music has come since the days the Party Of Five theme song was a lynchpin of our local music pedigree.
