Monday, May 10, 1999
FESTIVAL REVIEW
All ages come together at Jammin' on Main
BY LARRY NAGER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The oldest guy was the last man standing Saturday night, as '70s superstar Peter Frampton, 49, closed the 1999 Pepsi Jammin' On Main.
Boosted by the combined cross-generational drawing power of the veteran British rocker and main stage headliner the Goo Goo Dolls, the second night of the downtown music festival drew around 30,000, more than twice Friday's crowd.
Saturday opened with a festival-within-the-festival, as “Shades of Blue” brought a Who's Who of the Tristate's blues scene to the Cinergy Stage, the largest of the three Jammin' venues. Hosted by the project's producers, Larry Goshorn and Marcos Sastre, the segment featured the down-home piano of Big Joe Duskin, the rocking blues of High Street and the juke joint sounds of Sweet Alice & Unfinished Business.
Meanwhile, Lexington's Funnel opened the expanded second stage with a set of generic alterna-rock. That Budweiser Stage was Saturday's venue for local bands, showcasing the confident pop-rock of the Bromwell-Diehl Band, the spunky punk-pop of Fairmount Girls and the brawny guitar grind of El Gigante.
Mr. Frampton closed the Bud Stage, drawing a massive audience that spilled down Central Parkway, almost meeting the Goo Goo Dolls crowd. Balding but still blonde, he kept his multigenerational crowd cheering and singing along to his vintage arena rock.
The Bud Stage stretched the Jammin' envelope, enlarging the fest area east on Central Parkway toward Sycamore Street. It was a good move, reducing much of the sound “bleed” from stage to stage.
Still, quieter acts at the AirTouch Stage had trouble competing with the rock bands at the other stages. Unless producers Cincinnati Arts Festival Inc. and SFX of Cincinnati come up with some kind of Christo-like street baffles, that looks to be a problem in the future as well.
Jazz singer Ann Chamberlain opened AirTouch Saturday with a fine set of smoky after-hours jazz that seemed a bit out of place on a sunny afternoon. Singer/songwriter John Kinney followed with a set that could have used a few more of his harder-rocking songs. Katie Reider was next and fared a bit better, with a set that included her fine original, “Trusted Eyes,” along with a Caribbean-flavored cover of Cyndi Lauper's “Time After Time.”
But the hit of the night on that stage was Big Bill Pickle & the Legendary Jerkin' Gherkins. Led by Cincinnati mainstay David Rhodes Brown, the band, featuring a hard-blowing five-man horn section, had a huge crowd swingin' on Main, as the jitterbug set took over.
It turned the outdoor show into a real festival, the one set of the night that matched Liquid Soul's Friday night multicultural celebration for pure musical joy.
The Belmont Playboys closed that stage with a full-tilt set of hard-driving rockabilly.
At Cinergy it was more like a typical rock show, as FrogPond warmed up the crowd for the looser FastBall. The latter band gave a tongue-in-cheek tribute to its Austin roots, as guitarist Mike Zuniga sang Willie Nelson's “On the Road Again.”
But the crowd came for the Goo Goos and, despite a blown knee that kept bassist Robby Takac perched on a stool, the band gave a non-stop show that rocked from “Slide” to the Grammy-nominated ballad “Iris.”
But the newest wrinkle in Jammin' had nothing to do with staging or the bands on those stages.
It was the crowd, which brought new meaning to “all-ages show.” Both nights, entire families were a common sight strolling through the fest.
Not long ago, there was talk of canceling Jammin' in the aftermath of the rowdy mosh-pit shutdown by police at the 1996 event.
Fortunately for the local scene, that didn't happen. This year, Jammin' resembled a musical Taste of Cincinnati, as parents and kids came together to sample the town's talent and catch a few national headliners in the bargain.
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