Day 7 of the Duluth Homegrown Music Festival started with the Saturday kickball game at noon in Chester Park. Team Friday night bands beat the Saturday night bands 4-0.
With renowned folk musician Bruce Cockburn at the West Theatre and hip-hop artists Method Man and Redman at the DECC, music lovers had a lot of choices this year for the Saturday night of Homegrown. Crowds did seem slightly smaller than the previous evening, but select venues were still filled to capacity at times. Once again the evening began on opposite ends of town, at Spirit of the Lake Community Arts in Lakeside and at Wussow’s Concert Cafe in West Duluth.
The quartet that is The Adjustments delivered their blues/rock set to start the tunes at Zeitgeist Teatro. Between songs were cries of "That's my math teacher" and "Can I get extra credit?" - lighthearted heckling from students of guitarist Mr. Nelson.
Shane Nelson gathered a stellar band of local musicians, including vocalist Maxi Childs, to back his Wussow’s set, calling them “the most Homegrown group of people around.” He shared songs from his soon-to-be-released album, and let Childs take the mic for a cover of “Some Kind of Wonderful.”
Next at Zeitgeist was the bell choir, Strikepoint, who opened with their rousing namesake number, then pivoted to the Sister Act soundtrack, The Nutcracker, a 1950s standard... they covered the musical bases using dozens of bells in front of a full audience.
Studio 4 hosted three dance groups during the night, beginning with Zenith City Dance Collective.
A band that routinely ends their sets with a singalong of a song called “We All Walk the Plank Alone” was a perfect fit for a pirate-themed Homegrown night. The Old Smugglers took the stage at Sacred Heart and revved up the audience with their Tom Waits-meets-sea-chanty energy.
In the early slot at Sir Ben's, many awaited the next iteration of Troy Rogers' space-aged musical project Robot Rickshaw. The silver hazmat suit has been traded in for a neon-colored geometric mask and a sleek new rickshaw full of robot musicians. Rogers' synthesized voice was only intelligible in intriguing bits and pieces as he monologued over the music. He ended the performance by parting the crowd and walking through to climb up onto the bar, then back to the stage.
At the Moorish Room, Nikki Lemire demonstrated that the harp is most definitely more than a classical music instrument, nimbly playing and singing her well-crafted songs. Lemire Homegrown has grown through the years, starting out as an idea from one person. That person, Starfire, happened to be in the front row and received some cheers.
At the Duluth Flame, new band Mid Dream took the stage for a set of pop-punk tunes with retro synth sounds. Two members of the band are from the much-missed local group The Latelys.
R.T. Quinlans was bursting at the seams for Bratwurst's over-the-top performance. The bar owner was overheard to say, "my bar smells like meat for three days after they play.”
During their set closing out the night at Pizza Luce, Americana band Boxcar dedicated a cover of Wilco's "Jesus, Etc." to Scott Nelson, the venue's owner who was a huge booster of the local music scene before his death from ALS in 2020.
