There are grander reasons to start a music festival. Building community. Giving overlooked artists a stage. Bringing something different to town.
Then there is wanting to wear a hoodie.
The event returns for its second year Saturday, Sept. 19, but this will be its first time taking over Bigs Bar, where a long afternoon of rock and metal is scheduled to mutate into an EDM show as darkness settles over West 12th Street.
When asked how long Eerie Echoes had been around, Nate Yeigh, traced its origin back to last fall.
“Second year. First year at Big’s. Did it at 49th st liquor last year. The manager wanted to do events in the parking lot and I wanted an event that wasnt hot as heck and I could wear a hoodie to”
It is an unexpectedly tidy explanation for a festival that does not seem particularly interested in tidiness.
Last October’s first Eerie Echoes was held at 49th Street Liquor as a daylong collision of metal, DJs, art, food and Halloween-season weirdness. Nine bands and four DJs were advertised alongside local artists, vendors, a costume contest, rubber axe throwing and other attractions. The idea was already bigger than putting several bands on a bill and calling it a festival.
This year, the venue changes. The ambition does not.
Something unfamiliar between the local bands
The current Eerie Echoes Music & More Volume 2 listing has gates opening at noon and music beginning at 1 p.m. Rock and metal are scheduled until 8, with the event remaining all ages through that portion of the day. Twelve bands are spread across two stages on the current bill before five electronic artists take over for Echoes After Dark from 8 p.m. until 1 a.m.
Nate said the two-stage setup is weather permitting. After the EDM transition, the plan is to remain outside until 11 p.m. before moving the final stretch indoors until 1.
“Its a Halloween themed event, with heavy indoor decor. 2 stages (weather permitting) with rock and metal bands during the day. The focus is to try and introduce bands that have never played here that deserve the to be heard along with our local talent. The same mindset to give some different sounds to the area after 8 when it switches to edm. Outside until 11 and then inside until 1am. Always excited to bring in local artists and crafters as well to round out the event with a hope to eventually incorporate games and activities in future years.”
Stage 1 currently includes Snake Father, Ocean of Illusions, Torment, Greydream, Husk, Under Exile and Tombseeker. Stage 2 brings Foreword, Sioux Falls’ own Indigent, Violenta, Theoretic and Man Seeking Mountain. Once the guitars begin clearing out, Starfox, Agent O, Bloke, rawlz and Stien are scheduled for Echoes After Dark.
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Heavy music from well outside the neighborhood
At the top of the heavier side is Austin, Texas deathcore band Snake Father, whose 2026 output has included the six-track “SAGITTAL” EP. The record runs through tightly packed songs including “SUDDEN DEATH,” “KOATL,” “SAGITTAL” and “VEIL SLIP,” while the band’s official site is already pointing listeners toward newer material.
New Jersey’s Ocean of Illusions pushes another corner of extreme music onto the bill. The band identifies itself in the death-metal lane, with recent material including “Doomed,” while its catalog has moved between death metal, deathcore heft and breakdown-heavy songwriting.
Torment comes down from Duluth, Minnesota, where the band grew out of the city’s basement-show scene beginning in 2016. Their own history reads like a map of what Eerie Echoes seems interested in importing: death metal, hardcore, breakdowns, blast beats and a live show designed less for passive observation than physical release. Their catalog includes 2022’s “Swallow Your Teeth” and “The Pain” EP from 2025.
Then there is Under Exile, whose Spotify biography gets to the point in five words: “Metal from the Navajo Nation.” Their latest EP, “Ephemera,” arrived in March with four tracks, adding another distinct identity to an afternoon already moving between multiple strains of heavy music.
Foreword, meanwhile, comes from San Antonio with a metalcore sound that folds ambient synth textures and electronic elements between the heavier pieces. That makes them an interesting bridge on a festival where the musical vocabulary is scheduled to change dramatically once 8 p.m. arrives.
Sioux Falls stays in the bloodstream
For all the emphasis on acts that have not had much exposure here, Eerie Echoes has kept local music planted in the middle of the bill.
Indigent is among the clearest examples. Brothers Zach and Julian Lewis formed the Sioux Falls project with bassist Brett Kamerud in fall 2025 after years spent separately around the local scene. The band released its five-song debut EP, “Take One,” in January, moving through thick guitars, punk-rooted rhythms and hazier melodic vocals instead of trying to mimic the most extreme bands surrounding them Saturday.
Their presence gets at something important about the festival’s stated mission. Introducing touring artists only works if there is a local scene for them to meet when they arrive.
Eerie Echoes is trying to make that exchange part of the day rather than treating local bands as decoration around a touring package. It also extends beyond music. Local artists and crafters are again part of the plan, continuing an element that was already central to the first event. The official listing also names Double D BBQ and The Corndog Company among the food trucks scheduled for Saturday.
Nate already talks about eventually adding games and activities in future years, which would push Eerie Echoes farther toward the strange little Halloween carnival it began resembling during its first run at 49th Street Liquor.
For now, the music is doing most of the lifting.
When the guitars hand the night over
At 8 p.m., Eerie Echoes changes species.
The all-ages rock and metal portion ends and Echoes After Dark begins, bringing Starfox, Agent O, Bloke, rawlz and Stien into the night. The current schedule has electronic music running until 1 a.m., with its own $20 after-dark admission option compared with $25 for the full day and night.
The shift is more interesting than simply replacing bands with DJs.
STARFOX comes from the experimental-bass side of electronic music, folding live saxophone and trumpet into bass production that moves through dubstep, drum and bass, glitch hop, halftime and the artist’s own descriptions of “neuro jazz” and “portal hop.” Bandsintown lists STARFOX as coming from Los Angeles, while Gravitas Recordings describes the project as the work of a Michigan-born horn player and producer now based in California.
That makes 8 p.m. one of the more intriguing moments on the schedule.
Afterglow
Eerie Echoes is still young enough that nobody really knows what it will become.
Last year it lived in the parking lot at 49th Street Liquor with bands, DJs, artists, food and a collection of carnival-like detours. This weekend it moves into Bigs, adds a two-stage plan and stretches from early-afternoon metal through electronic music after midnight. If the idea keeps growing, games and more activities may eventually join the noise.
This is not a festival arriving fully formed with a carefully focus-grouped identity. It is being assembled year by year around a simpler instinct: find artists people here have not heard, put them beside the musicians already working in Sioux Falls and give everybody a reason to stay for something they did not expect.
And, if the September weather cooperates, finally make it cool enough to wear the hoodie.
Eerie Echoes Music & More Volume 2 takes place Saturday, Sept. 19, at Bigs Bar, 3110 W. 12th St. in Sioux Falls. Gates open at noon with rock and metal beginning at 1 p.m. Echoes After Dark begins at 8 p.m. and runs until 1 a.m. The event is all ages until 8 p.m. Current advertised admission is $25 for the full event or $20 for Echoes After Dark.
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