The simple instruction “DO NOT DM ME AFTER THE SHOW” was emblazoned on a shirt for sale at the Best Music Festival, a day-long fundraiser for Hamden video store and cultural center Best Video, at the Space Ballroom Saturday.
Interested customers could purchase the shirt for a cool $15, or, as a sign at the merch table read, “$20 w/pickle.”
In fact, this merch table was mostly pickles. Stephen Friedland, local musician in bands Fat Randy, The Knife Kickers, and Skating, showed up to the festival not just to rock out, but to sell his own “Dr. Randall’s” brand of pickles, which came in three artisanal flavors: Italian Dill, Ghost Pepper, and Bread & Butter.
Friedland was one of a handful of vendors at the festival, with doors opening at half past noon and shows running until 10 p.m. The bill featured 12 musical artists, vendors selling wares beyond just band shirts and CDs, and supportive vibes all day.
Yankee Vinyl and Heavy Sound & Vision sold rows of vinyls, from one-dollar records to rare finds. Yarnhead Crochet had a table of crochet animals, and jewelry maker Cielv offered chunky, fantasy-inspired rings, necklaces, and earrings.
Will Oxford, at the Best Video info table, said he was proud of Teo and Lucas Hernandez, Best Video employees, brothers, and bandmates in Hamden band Wally. They organized the festival, and Oxford said he was happy to “see the fruits of their labor.”
“Lucas did most of the work, to be honest,” Teo said.
Sebastian Bernal and Dan Lindberg, bandmates in Hamden rock band Death Valley Sun Troopers, met in preschool and grew up as neighbors in Hamden, right down the street from Best Video. “It’s a wonderful place,” Bernal said of the video store, remembering visiting as a kid.
Bernal, along with Death Valley Sun Trooper guitarist Ryan Shea, made sure to try a sample of Friedland’s Italian Dill before their set.
“It’s a really good pickle,” said Bernal. He and Shea both agreed that the flavor was “complex.”
But it was a different flavor that captured Bernal’s heart in the end. After performing, he made sure to grab a jar of the Bread & Butter variety before the band continued on what they called their “world tour of the northeast.”
Death Valley Sun Troopers had just come from Philadelphia the day before and were headed to a show at a library in Amherst, Mass., that evening. The next day, they were on the bill at a dive bar in Brooklyn.
Then they’ll have to go to college. The four rock stars are getting their degrees in music, plant science, and arts management.
In the meantime, they had a few good summer weeks left to be truly rowdy. When it was time for their set, they went from zero to 60 in no time, using the entire stage to kick, rage, and strike dramatic poses as they lunged into their loud punk rock sound. The bandmates found each other in the grungy haze long enough to play a few well-placed synchronized chords together before breaking apart again, switching fluidly between carelessness and devotion without missing a beat. At times, Bernal, Shea and bassist Tyler Newman turned their backs to the audience, leaning back as they played to the drummer, Lindberg.
One of the guitarists hit a clean riff with a Midwest emo twang. Guitar feedback arced over soft lyrics like a veil, followed by a millisecond of silence and Bernal repeating the line in a scream.
When it seemed like the band would close out their time on stage with a soft last song, it was almost humorous, an obvious fakeout. The song was called “Avalanche,” and it did what it promised. In the end, Death Valley Sun Troopers did not go gentle into that good set.
Instead, Lindberg hit a deliberate, heavy lead-up to an overpowering wall of sound from the whole band. Newman jumped off the edge of the kick drum. The crowd erupted into shouts, and Bernal and Newman celebrated another successful set with a high-five that turned into a multi-step secret handshake.
If you missed the Best Music Festival, don’t worry. You’ll soon be able to catch it as a concert film on tape. Filmmaker Derick Noetzel, looking like a vision from the ‘90s with his big camcorder, mustache, shorts and high socks, was hard at work Saturday turning the show into instant memories. He is good friends with “the Wally guys,” and when they asked him to film the festival, it was a no-brainer.
“Can you bring your TVs?” he remembers them adding. So he did. Stacked on either side of the performers on stage were analog television sets, playing Noetzel’s footage in real time.
The live playback allowed Noetzel to create an infinity effect by filming the TV sets themselves, looping the image inside itself for an cosmic swirl of analog screens. As he pushed the effect to its limit, recognizable shapes melted into stars, galaxies, and then just a stream of endless light. Then Noetzel zoomed out and refocused on the performers, bringing the image back to what was happening on stage.
“Best Video, that’s my pride and joy,” Lucas said, beaming, before Wally got into their set. “Shoutout Rai, our executive director in the house.” The crowd went wild for Raizine (Rai) Bruton and her baby, babbling to the beat.
