Photo Essay: Looking Back at Waking Windows

Looking Back at Waking Windows

Whoever coined the phrase “Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened” deserves a swift kick to the teeth at whatever Life Is Good corporate office they undoubtedly work in. Waking Windows is just about over. And it makes us wanna cry. Like, ugly cry.

The annual indie music festival, which marks its final run around the Winooski rotary this weekend, wasn’t Vermont’s biggest. And, since music taste is so subjective, it’s silly to say it was the best. But for 15 years — pandemic hiatus aside — Waking Windows was undoubtedly the coolest.

For starters, look at the venue: Winooski itself. Following its first year in 2011, when it was held over 11 days at the Monkey House, Waking Windows became a citywide affair. Stages popped up in every corner, from bars, restaurants and shops to a church and an abandoned bank, not to mention premium spots in Rotary Park and on Winooski Falls Way. For three days each May — during which the weather was always perfect, right, guys? — the Onion City became an indie-rock playground.

Then there was the music. For a grassroots fest, scoring Japanese Breakfast, Dinosaur Jr., Real Estate and Deer Tick as headliners at or near their peaks was astonishing. But the undercards were even more impressive. If you were a Waking Windows regular, chances are you saw the likes of Waxahatchee, Big Thief, Future Islands and Frankie Cosmos years before most of your friends knew who they were. Which brings us to what really made Waking Windows so special: the people who made it happen.

Even at the festival’s 2017 to 2019 apex, when it drew 8,000 fans a year to the ‘Noosk, going to Waking Windows felt like being welcomed into a select club whose only secret was that anyone could join. Each year, organizers Paddy Reagan, Nick Mavodones, Matt Rogers, and husband-and-wife team Brian and Ali Nagle pulled off a remarkable feat: making the fest feel both exclusive and inclusive at the same time. Anyone who ventured into its orbit couldn’t help but feel a little cooler, playing hipster Frogger around the rotary.

So yes, there will be smiles — and high fives — aplenty in Winooski this weekend as fans thrill to Cut Worms, Palehound, and pretty much every band and DJ in the greater Burlington area. But on Sunday night, once Rough Francis play the last Waking Windows live set ever at the Monkey House and Brian “Disco Phantom” Nagle spins its final DJ set, there will be tears, too. (But also pizza.)

Take a nostalgic spin around the rotary with some of our favorite images of Waking Windows past. And thanks, WW crew, for everything.

The original print version of this article was headlined “Closing the Curtains | On the eve of the final Waking Windows, here’s a photographic look back at the Winooski indie music fest’s epic run”