The Waking Windows Five: Top shows from this year's festival in downtown Winooski
WINOSKI ― Some adventurous musical act should start each Waking Windows festival by performing “The Rite of Spring” by Stravinsky. The three-day event that happens regularly in early May always feels like an official kickoff for the season, bringing bands and their fans out of music clubs and into the light of downtown Winooski.
It wasn’t exactly a silent spring this past weekend, but the 11th iteration of the festival did return a bit to its humble beginnings. The organizers of Waking Windows all encountered significant life changes the past year – babies, new jobs and new homes – forcing them to scale the festivities back.
Unlike 2022’s return from a pandemic-related hiatus of two years, this year’s celebration didn’t include well-known acts like Japanese Breakfast, Dinosaur Jr. or Dry Cleaning drawing thousands of fans to Winooski. A handful of out-of-towners joined a lineup primarily of Vermont talent who played live sets either inside at The Monkey House or, on Saturday, on the outdoor stage within the Winooski rotary. Waking Windows regulars such as Rough Francis, Swale and Maryse Smith kept that festive feeling of family intact for a more-intimate collection of several hundred local music fans.
This year’s festival didn’t quite have that churn of people heading into and out of makeshift venues scattered throughout the city’s compact core. It did, however, have plenty of outstanding performances, five of which we’re highlighting here, in chronological order.
Blowtorch
The veteran Burlington band delivered Friday night at The Monkey House what it’s produced off and on for decades – white-hot punk rock driven by killer chords – with an energy dictated by today’s chaotic times. Vocalist Clark Russell leads the charge, carried by the man he called the “Czar of guitar,” Bill Mullins.
Hammydown
The Burlington trio that played the rotary stage Saturday afternoon gives leader Abbie Morin plenty of room to let their tuneful songs shine, but creates enough vibrant sound to give the music proper heft. Morin keeps promising a soon-to-be-released album that, thanks to this set and the band’s opening gig for Caroline Rose last month at Higher Ground, is whetting plenty of local appetites.
Maryse Smith
Vermont misses this perceptive singer-songwriter who a few years ago relocated to Martha’s Vineyard. She sometimes returns to the state for solo gigs displaying her brilliant little jewels disguised as subdued songs, but Saturday afternoon at The Monkey House she played with a full band that gave her set a rocking, crowd-pleasing vigor.
Underground System
The top set of music by an act without Vermont ties might have been this one by the Brooklyn ensemble that sets a blazing fire with its funky, urban-fueled dance-rock. Sly and the Family Stone has a worthy successor in this foursome led by Domenica Fossati, whose dynamism on the rotary stage Saturday night produced more power than the rushing Winooski River falls a couple hundred yards away.
Robber Robber
Burlington’s next indie-rock band to watch helped draw Waking Windows to a close Sunday night with a set at The Monkey House that alternately exuded disaffected cool and supreme urgency. The band is led by Nina Cates, who also plays with Hammydown; like that group, Robber Robber is about to release an album that promises to widen the foursome’s increasingly pronounced footprint.
Contact Brent Hallenbeck at bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Waking Windows shows that shined at this year's festival in Winooski
