You did St. Patrick's day. Now you feel rough. If only, you think to yourself, there was some sort of beach where I could relax with a cheap cocktail on the sand and maybe listen to some music. But you're in Dallas, and you're at least five hours drive from the nearest beach.
Ain't nobody got time for that.
Yet here, to the rescue, rides Spillover 2013, a festival on the best beach to ever spring up in the middle of a heavily industrialized area, with a sprawling line-up of bands and a pricepoint that just won't quit. Truly, the Sandbar Cantina is a perfect venue for this sort of thing. It couldn't really host late-night rock concerts without sacrificing some of its vibe, and a big, burly, St. Patrick's day-sized crowd would have taken all the shine off of this event. As it was, the sun was shining, everyone had their shoes off, the beer and cocktails were cheap, the burgers were plentiful, and the volleyball was a constant and ongoing threat to the main stage.
Oh, the music. Right, yes, the music. Parenthetical Girls and Jaill were the two stand-outs early on, with the former's set featuring the wonderful physical comedy of a song stopping and a volleyball flying across the stage from the nearby court. A sheepish lady in a bikini collected it, accompanied by the gentle chiding of singer Zac Pennington, who proceeded to perform the next song from atop a stack of amps, a move surely designed to stay out the path of any more wayward volleyballs. Alex Bleeker and the Freaks and Vietnam then arrived, and set a perfect tone for the sunny beach.
As my view of the Dallas skyline was obscured first by a palm tree and then by Vietnam's fuzzy haze of feedback and joy (I realize a sound can't obscure vision, but I'm writing meaningful stuff here, just go with it), in my head I compared my current predicament to the apocalyptic scenes on Greenville from the day before and made several decisions about what it is I want from life. Basically, I want more sparsely-populated beach festivals and fewer million-man marches in favor of alcohol and the color green.
I then, reluctantly, switched tack to the less aesthetically pleasing but considerably more metal Double Wide stage over the road. First being sonically assaulted by a riotous Black Tusk set, and noticing that Nick Oliveri was just walking around the Double Wide patio without a care in the world, I prepared for a Mondo Generator set that was strangely far down the bill. That seemed even stranger a few songs later, when Oliveri and his cohorts started rolling out QOTSA songs, and gloriously towards the end of the set, Kyuss' "Allen's Wrench". I would have paid $15 to see Mondo Generator, let alone see Parenthetical Girls have to process the fact that a volleyball might hit them during their set.
Back across to Sandbar, ears ringing, NOBUNNY were busy winning the prize for what in God's name is the singer dressed as. I mean, I assume it was a bunny, but given their name, that can't be true. Also, bunnies don't wear incredibly small swimming trunks. By now, bands were favoring the stage furthest from the more competitive volleyball players, who had been going all day. Does this mean they paid $15 to get in and just ignore music and play volleyball all day? Each to their own I suppose.
Zechs Marquise rounded out the night with a fantastic set heavy on the funk that seems an inherent feature of the Rodriguez-Lopez genepool. The crowd was relatively sparse, but the good times were still flowing. Flowing so much they spilled over. No, that was perfect. If I end the review there it will literally be too good.
Let me just say that you can keep your St. Patrick's Centralized Apocalypse, and if the presence of that festival and the hangovers associated with it keeps attendance here down to the point where I can see bands like Vietnam, Mondo Generator and Zechs Marquise in crowds of about fifty people, then I hope they quadruple the size of the parade and have Pitbull perform or something. I will not be attending. I will instead be at this frankly perfect Sunday afternoon festival. God bless you, Spillover, and all that sail within you.
