Festival Review: Fisherman’s Village Music Festival delivers three great days of music

TELLERS

This year’s Fisherman’s Village Music Festival was a real roll of the dice. In years past this local festival has tried to complete with the bigger regional festivals, trying to find the right balance in both size and timing.

In its sixth year, Fisherman’s Village has found its perfect scenario, kicking off the festival in Downtown Everett and then moving it to the industrial area of the Port Gardner neighborhood.

And the fact that they gambled on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday schedule created a nice alternative to the weekend routine.

The Downtown Everett portion of the festival kicked off at the Schack Art Center, a fine art gallery that showcases and fosters the creative artisans in Snohomish County. Surprisingly, the acoustics were outstanding for The Porters, Molly Parden and Portland’s very own Laura Veirs in this spacious venue. Not your typical concert venue but it really worked and it brought in a variety of folks from the arts community.

Laura Veirs

The other evening’s venues were Narrative Coffee and Black Lab Gallery, which were both packed with attendees and featuring Northwest bands from Everett’s Sylvi, King Mammoth, Oliver Elf Army, Sleepover Club to Seattle’s Valley Maker and Wimps, as well as Spokane’s SuperSparkle.  Thursday’s evening performances were a fun way to get the festival off and running as we shifted to the industrial area of town for the rest of the weekend.

On Friday and Saturday, the festival moved into the neighborhood surrounding one of the festival sponsors, Scuttlebutt Brewing Company, which was one of the venues as well. The layout for the three stages allowed attendees to venture from one stage to another with ease. The Night Market Stage allowed for folks to catch some music as they headed into the artisan craft market where there were all kinds of merchandise for sale.

Killinsworth, was a charming opener, singing her poetic songs and playing her ukulele. Everett’s very own Tellers and I Will Keep Your Ghost provided some top notch tunes to get the Main Stage started. A couple bands that stood out for me were Actionesse and The Moon Is Flat, both playing on the Night Market Stage.

Actionesse

The layout for this year’s Fisherman’s Village was very concise and flowed really well. With the crafty artisans offer a variety of goods and food, this little bit of commerce worked really well. One of my favorite vendors was Grain Artisan Bakery and baker Lauren whose huge slices of cakes were the hot sellers. Both days she sold out of her bake goods, even coming back for a second round on Saturday and sold out once again.

My Saturday began in mid-afternoon with Americana rockers FRETLAND. This Snohomish band is gonna be something with harmonizing sisters Hillary and Kara Fretland and a drivin’ sound.

FRETLAND

My other favorite of the day was Death Valley Girls from Los Angeles. This band had everything going, thrashy guitar riffs from Larry Schemel, booming bass from Nikki Pickle, Laura Kelsey pounding the drums, with lead vocals, keyboards and guitar from Bonnie Bloomgarden. 

Death Valley Girls

Another stand out was the prose of Tilson XOXO who had the Scuttlebutt Taproom mesmerized.

Tilson XoXo

Overall, I felt that this year’s Fisherman’s Village Music Festival was one of the best ever. It was more low-key and relaxing being in a central area, simply, it worked. Moving it out of Downtown Everett was a good move and it will be great to see how this event grows for 2020.

Check out more upcoming shows from Everett Music Initiative here.

Check out more photos from the festival HERE.

Peter Dervin

Peter Dervin Bio I was born in Los Angeles, raised on BOSS Radio KHJ 930AM listening to the Real Don Steele, grew up listening to Dr. Demento on KMET 94.7, graduated to Rodney Bengenheimer on KROQ-FM. Started collecting records in high school, I haven’t stopped. Moved to the Northwest in 1989. Became a disc jockey and program host on 90.7 KSER in Everett, I was there for 18 years. Owned a record shop from 1993-1995 called Orbit Records. Mike McCready from Pearl Jam bought a PJ 45 from me. I wrote music reviews for a monthly called “The Taste of Everett”. I was Editor of a trade publication called the “Northwest Landscape Professional” I had always been photographing at the concerts I’ve attended. In 2010, the Grateful Dead used my photos from 1980 on a Road Trips CD release. I then began the journey of taking my photography to the next level. I have photographed a who’s who of musicians, bands and artists. From Los Lobos to DEVO and everything in between. You can see my portfolio at www.peterdervin.com.

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