click to enlarge - File: Luke Awtry
- From left: Nick Mavodones, Matt Rogers, Ali Fogel, Paddy Reagan and Brian Nagle in 2019
When you spend enough time in a music scene, you start to notice shifts, passages from one era to another. They're subtle and, to the casual observer, probably unrecognizable. But those immersed in the scene can see and feel changes as they happen — and we might have witnessed the end of an era last week.
On Wednesday, the team over at Waking Windows announced that the popular annual indie rock and arts festival in Winooski will not happen this year, at least not on its usual scale. While the organizers promised a party of some kind in May, it won't be the three-day, 200-act, Onion City-consuming blowout that thousands of fans have come to know and love.
Since it kicked off more than a decade ago, Waking Windows has grown in size and reputation. It became the jewel of the scene, an event where you could catch iconic acts such as Dinosaur Jr. and Future Islands while also seeing the best of what our local musicians have to offer. It's been one of the first weekends I circle on my calendar every year — two pandemic cancellations aside — and I know I wasn't alone in that.
If you haven't read the team's announcement, the gist is basically the following: "Hey, putting on this beast is a nightmare, we pretty much never make any money, and we've all got some adult stuff happening now — that is, new jobs and babies." All very understandable reasons for putting aside a gargantuan annual task.
click to enlarge - Courtesy Of BDL Photography
- Kikagaku Moyo at the 2019 Waking Windows
I got the early heads-up while interviewing one of Waking Windows' founders, Matt Rogers, who's the newly minted director of programming at the Flynn in Burlington. (You can check out our conversation here.)
As Rogers explained why a full-scale fest couldn't happen this year, a revelation emerged. For all the incredible work that Rogers, Paddy Reagan, Ali and Brian Nagle, and Nick Mavodones have done over the years in bringing top-shelf independent music to the scene, the crew has rarely contemplated its influence on the state of local music.
"We were a group of people who didn't have a scene, per se," Rogers told me. "We just wanted those shows to happen. But after a few years, we started to see the reactions. The local submissions for the festival really started to get good."
Waking Windows has had a massive effect on the local scene since launching in 2011. On top of giving artists a yearly showcase, the fest saturated the scene with sounds we most likely wouldn't have heard otherwise and bands that other venues wouldn't have booked.
I don't have any hard data in front of me, but I have to believe there is a direct through line from having a world-class indie music fest in our backyard to the robustness of our own indie scene in recent years. Local acts such as THUS LOVE and Rough Francis, as well as bands with strong Vermont DNA such as Guerilla Toss, appeared at Waking Windows (sometimes in multiple years) before going on to greater success.
While the festival is drastically downsizing this year, Waking Windows isn't going anywhere as a creative booking force. It's still lining up great shows at the Monkey House and other small venues. Who knows, maybe next year the team will have the bandwidth to stage the festival again. Hope springs eternal.
Still, it's hard not to feel as if an era is coming to a close. The young, hotshot bookers who challenged the status quo in the area have moved up to jobs at more established local arts institutions — Rogers at the Flynn, Reagan at the University of Vermont's Lane Series. It's a natural progression that is both deserved and sensible.
"It's interesting as we reach our late thirties and forties," Reagan mused. "We're shifting into new positions, and it's cool to see the scene shift like this. I hope we do well with the reins given us."
Waking Windows changed everything in the local music scene. As it makes the transition into a new phase, I wonder: Will the next generation step up to fill that void? If so, what might it create?