Around noon, before the parking lot had anything resembling a crowd, skateboards were rolling across the asphalt at Bigs Bar. It was a great addition to Eerie Echoes. Bigs has enough room outside to give skaters an actual place to move, and the rails and boards made the festival feel like more than a succession of bands waiting for their turn onstage. The morning turnout was light. Many of the skaters in town are younger, and more trickled in as the day went on, when the lot had started to look and sound more like a festival.
The schedule needed that breathing room. Several bands couldn’t make it at the last minute, for reasons that ranged from members being out of town or halfway across the country to canceled United flights. One act had gear stolen. The festivities were pushed back, an unwelcome complication for a day already designed to run from afternoon rock and metal into late-night electronic music. For the skaters arriving later, though, it meant more time to take a turn at the rails. Eerie Echoes kept moving, even if it couldn’t move quite as planned.
Around 2:40, Nate, the creator of Eerie Echoes, was excited about a band that included a few friends he’d graduated high school with. He expected their families to turn out, and they did not disappoint. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many moms and dads in a crowd like this. There was a particular pleasure in watching people show up for musicians they’d known before the bands and the festival existed. With so much of the bill shifting around them, that gathering became one of the day’s most beautiful memories.
The music finds its feet
Indigent, a local favorite, started off the evening bands for us. Their first song took its time introducing them. The long instrumental opening had an older, spacious feel, the sort of passage that brought Pink Floyd to mind, before the rougher punk-rock edge came through. There was a Nirvana-like scrape to it, then something stranger at the end — spooky, almost alien. The musicians had enough command of their instruments to let that opening develop instead of rushing straight to the loudest part. It gave the set more shape than a quick introduction would have.
Outside, the crowd rose and thinned over the course of the day. A festival this long is a marathon for the audience, too. People pick the hours they can manage, leave for a while and come back for the sounds they most want to hear. That’s a double-edged sword for a band playing to whoever happens to be in front of the stage at a given moment. The musicians still brought their best to those people. Smoke hung under the outdoor rig as a vocalist moved toward the edge of the stage; later, a bassist leaned into a set while the sky darkened. There was more room than bodies at points, but the people I spoke with who did come were having a wonderful time.
The changing bill also showed how willing musicians were to help each other keep the day going. Giant’s Knife came from the St. Paul area at the last minute to perform. In conversations around the festival, musicians talked about trying to make it to Sioux Falls and branch out farther into the Midwest, not simply passing through on a tour. Ocean of Illusions had come from as far away as New Jersey. Eerie Echoes was meant to put unfamiliar bands alongside local talent; even with cancellations, those distances and last-minute decisions gave the idea some weight.
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The art and merch between sets
My favorite part of the festival was seeing my friends Michelle and Stefan with Sanctuary Goods. They’re coming up in the vending community, but they belong in conversations about the local art and music scenes, too. Inside Bigs, their display was part of a wider collection of handmade pieces and small businesses. Band shirts were spread across tables. Paintings and prints filled one booth; jewelry and carefully arranged small objects filled another. At one station, an artist worked glass over a flame. There was something to linger over even when the next band was still getting ready.
What Michelle and Stefan offer feels based around care for oneself and others. That might sound like a large claim for a vendor table, but their thoughtfulness and intuition are part of what makes them so welcome at an event. They talk with people, make room for them and help the festival feel like a place to spend time, not just a schedule to follow. On a day when the timetable kept changing, that kind of presence mattered to me. The other makers and merch sellers gave the room that same sense of activity between sets, each table a little different from the next.
When the sound changed
After dark, the music turned toward EDM. The electronic crowd I usually see at these events wasn’t there in the same numbers, and many of the metal bands and artists didn’t stay for that portion of the night. I understand it. Everyone had put in a long day. Still, a conversation near the end stayed with me. Someone argued that EDM artists don’t have talent, that making this kind of music doesn’t take much. I hear versions of that from time to time, and I can’t agree.
I’ve known electronic musicians who are classically trained and others who spent years playing in bands. I’ve known artists who devote serious attention to the music they love and to the choices behind what an audience hears. That doesn’t mean everyone has to like EDM, any more than everyone who came for the electronic sets has to love metal. But dismissing the work because it doesn’t look like a guitarist and drummer onstage misses what those artists are doing. I wished more people from each side had stayed long enough to hear the other.
Afterglow
I keep thinking about the parents watching their kids’ band and the first few skaters crossing a mostly open parking lot. Neither moment depended on a full crowd or a perfect schedule. By night, the lot had changed again, with screens lit up and electronic performers taking their turn. The day asked people to make room for music and art they might not have come specifically to see. Some did. Some went home. Eerie Echoes had its setbacks, but it still gave those who stayed a chance to listen past what they already knew.
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