Vintage Band Festival, Day Two: A Variety of Musical Styles

Day two of the Vintage Band Festival was filled with so many great moments, I can't really pick out a favorite.  I think what I enjoyed best was having the opportunity to hear such a variety of musical styles within a couple of hours, ranging from mariachi to Moravian polka to African American "trombone shout" music.

It was also fun to see so many people attending the concerts and spending time downtown.  I didn't get to any of the concerts that weren't on Bridge Square, but I heard from others that those sites, like Way Park, also attracted good crowds.

Here are photos from the five concerts I attended on Friday:

The Copper Street Brass Quintet, a group of young, extremely talented brass players based in Minneapolis, performed at 3 p.m.

The Copper Street Brass Quintet draws a large crowd at Bridge Square.

Newberry's Victorian Cornet Band performed at 4 p.m.  The Maryland-based band plays instruments built between 1870 and 1900.  Their uniforms and style of music were very similar to what my great-grandfather, G. Oliver Riggs, and his Crookston Band wore and played around the turn of the last century.

The cornet soloist performs during the concert by the Newberry's Victorian Cornet Band.

 

 

The youth mariachi band from St. Paul, Las Estrellas de Guadalupe, performed at 5 p.m.

Las Estrellas de Guadalupe performing in their second concert of the day.

The Austrian band Tschecharanka, had a 7 p.m. show.  This is the group's first trip to North America.

Tschecharanka is a 12-member Bohemian-style wind band.

And, in the last concert of the evening on Bridge Square, Kenny Carr and the Tigers from Charlotte, North Carolina, had the audience of (primarily) sedate Midwesterners clapping, dancing and even shouting.  Is that why the band is called a trombone shout band?!

Kenny Carr and the Tigers, a trombone shout band from North Carolina, engages the crowd.

More concerts and fun to come today, including a Civil War-style Battle of the Bands, and a vintage dance at the Northfield Ballroom.