Capitalizing on the outbound traffic from SXSW, Boise has put together a pretty impressive three-day music shindig.
The Treefort Music Festival features big names like Of Montreal, Why? and—of course—Built to Spill, but a surprising number of its acts are from Portland. My rough count revealed at least 15 groups from the Rose City lined up to play Boise between March 22 and 25 (that's the weekend after Austin's mega-festival/industry clusterfuck/taco marathon wraps up).
The Portland acts playing Treefort include
Aan, And And And, Au, Blitzen Trapper, Brainstorm, Death Songs, EMA, Empty Space Orchestra (Bend), Loch Lomond, Mosley Wotta (Bend), Parson Red Heads, Run On Sentence, Sallie Ford & the Sound Outside, Talkdemonic, The Ascetic Junkies,The Shivas, Typhoon, Wild Ones and Yeah Great Fine.
Here's the poster, so you can spot some that I missed:
Tickets to the fest are $79, which is pretty cheap, though for $149 you can get guaranteed entry to everything and the VIP treatment.
Still, you ask, why would you fly to Boise to see bands you could see at home? Well, for one thing, "here in Boise, the capitol city, in the midst of a vibrant downtown scene of young professionals, mom-and-pop local businesses, bars and nightclubs, late night pizza joints, college town energy, and progressive minded city planning -- there's a music, dance, theater and arts scene with a fresh, vibrant outlook producing ever-growing excitement here in Boise as well as from eyes and ears outside of the Treasure Valley."
That's straight from the fest's website, as you may have guessed. But Boise does have a
sweet-ass free-form radio station, and if you were thinking about going to Austin until you checked out the ticket prices, this might be pretty sweet road-trip alternative.
Boise is the Northwest's little brother city—we tend to forget about it. Maybe Treefort will help change all that.
Solomon's Hollow (another Portland band) is playing the festival as well:
http://www.myspace.com/solomonshollowmusic