Purple Door 2004 Review
The Purple Door Arts & Music Festival hit its ninth year on August 20-21 at Ski Roundtop in Lewisberry, Pennsylvania. After nearly a decade, Purple Door is still going strong, and this year proved to be one of the more interesting installments in the fest’s history.
Friday night kicked things off with The Evan Anthem on the Gallery Stage, usually home to the mellower acts that come. The band got off to a great start and stayed strong through their set, a pattern which would be repeated over and over again through the next day. The Main Stage Picked up with Copeland roughly an hour later, and again things were good.
Friday’s main focus was to be Pillar and Blindside on Main Stage, but sometimes things just do not go as planned. Before Pillar even hit the stage, the gathered crowd was treated to an ever-increasing show of lightning flashes. Near 9 pm Pillar came on, opening with “Fireproof” and before the band even had a chance to finish the area was hit with an onslaught of torrential rain. Pillar did manage to work through another song or two, but the rest of the night was cancelled. For many fans, the most disappointing part of that turn of events was that this makes two years in row that the always-impressive Blindside got rained out.
Saturday morning brought mud, rain, and still more mud. Oh, and there was great music in there, too. To detail everything would be impossible, but the HM stage featured solid performances from the likes of Haste the Day, Beloved, Stretch Armstrong and Squad Five-O, and Main Stage included The Supertones, Anberlin and Further Seems Forever.
To be honest, whether it was the rain or something else, the crowd at the HM stage seemed relatively subdued for most of the day. That changed with the coming of the stage’s last act for the day, Project 86. The band played through a great set of their better-known songs. When the set was done, they even responded to the inevitable chant of “One more song!” with the old favorite “Pipedream”. Then things got messy…in more ways than one. Midway through the song, vocalist Andrew Schwab prompted the audience into some mud-flinging.
For many, this just added to the amusement, until Mr. Schwab commented on how polite the audience was for not throwing any on him (in a “hint, hint” sort of tone). That got the biggest crowd reaction of the day. Suffice to say the stage got supremely dirty, a fair amount of stuff got ruined, some very important behind-the-scenes people got mad and…(did we mention the mud?).
From there the highlights skipped over to the nice and clean Gallery Stage for a stage-closing performance from Joy Electric (who once again picked up a live drummer for the show). Always enjoyable to watch, JE played mostly from their newest release Hello Mannequin, with a few older fan favorites like “Monosynth” tossed in for good measure. There is actually not much to be said about the set, but if you’ve ever seen JE live, you know it’s a memorable experience.
From there we go to the rain-free closing of Main Stage. Many fans got a pleasant surprise with the unexpected appearance of Reese Roper, formerly of Five Iron Frenzy. Reese did a little promotion of his new band Roper, and then introduced the weekend’s last band, Reliant K. Any group that adorns the stage with inflatable snowmen and starts off with “Deck the Halls” in August is worth watching. Reliant K played through a really enjoyable set in their signature sometimes-goofy-sometimes-serious style, and there’s no denying that this band is a lot of fun to watch.
When Sunday morning came around fans had experienced quite a bit. A little weather-defying adventure, and lot of muddy clothes, and more great music than any one person can experience in a day. It’s hard to give more than a sketch of what went on, and so it’s hard to really convey how awesome Purple Door really was this year. But hey, if you really want to know, just show up for year ten!
By Joel Roddin
[Photo to come soon]
© 2004, HM Magazine.
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Comments
Ah man, if Purple Door doesn't take Project back over mud, then I'm not sure if I will be coming back.
the MUDD!!!!!!!!
Man. The mud was out of control. Crazy. I had a good time out there though seeing friends and such. I spent most of my time selling merchandise.
