West Philly Porchfest
June 9, 2024
Philadelphia
I woke up at noon on Saturday, startled and drenched in sweat, to the sounds of whining guitar riffs escalating into manic chaos: West Philly Porchfest had started, and it was winding up right outside my window.
I had been in the middle of a nightmare in which I’m lost in a strip mall and then suddenly encased in a flash mob where I’m the only one on the outs.
Minutes later, awakened to real life, I was out on the streets, gripping a map of my neighborhood littered with dots, showcasing seemingly endless performances scattered across a half-mile stretch of Baltimore Avenue between 12 and sunset. It felt like an uncanny extension of my night, or mid-morning, terror.
I’d been long anticipating this day as a chance to get acquainted with the many bands producing all kinds of music that represent the uniquely outspoken melting pot of cultures that makes up West Philly. It would also be my first time experiencing any kind of “Porchfest,” the house-to-house-based concert formula that started in Ithaca back in 2007 that has since spread to cities all over the states.
My friends and I trudged through growing crowds and hot weather, sweating more profusely than I had been during my night terror, continuously arriving just late enough to catch only the final songs of carefully curated sets. We observed an encore demanded loudly from a crowd gathered around the smartly named band, The Side Chicks, who blasted a high-energy sax solo over Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie.” We were left wanting more and sad we’d missed their start — though we’ll reportedly get some come July, when the band is slated to release their latest album.
After too much moving around, my friends and I decided to make a plan, and headed over to the “opera house,” only to find that the chanteurs must have double booked themselves.
We discovered a similarly robust and dramatic ensemble of singers through “Sing Slavic,” a choir of femmes and nonbinary people focusing on intricate melodies from Poland, Ukraine, Croatia, etc. The flower crown effect did, unfortunately, remind me of Ari Aster’s drug-trip horror movie, “Midsommar,” in which a Pagan cult kills a crew of visitors to the Swedish summer festival with the exception of one blond girl whom they crown the May Queen. I tried to discern the meaning of a Serbian song about a “Little Carnation Girl,” which, as far as I could tell, was about a man trying to discern the sexual past of a woman through smelling her — a story that the soloist explained “is, depending on your perspective, either a really flirty song or a really creepy song.”
Slavic Sing spurred my realization that Porchfest, just like life itself, is all about perspective. Just because loud music had been pouring into my windows against my will that morning, and just because I had been caught in a comically miserable dream at that same point in time, didn’t mean I didn’t have the agency to control my own experience at my neighborhood’s porch extravaganza.
From then on, it was immersion therapy. Instead of just watching the ever-expanding mob around me, I joined in — and admired the symbiotic relationship between porch performers and street goers.
I took a beat by stopping by a laid back deck where the lead singer of Pleneros de la Cuaranta y Cuatro. For one second, her soft voice seemed like it may give way — and the crowd immediately backed her up, bringing a boisterous excitement to the enchanting, traditional Puerto Rican music. She smiled and continued singing.
Around the corner, back on Baltimore Avenue, The Guachinagos took the tempo from slow acoustic to high-energy hula-hoopers hosing down a street of partiers with water while the band played a fusion of cumbia and son jarocho. A conga line formed amid the Intergenerational duos dancing with ease and skill along pavement, sidewalk, porch and roof alike.
At the end of the night, we retired to a friend’s place, our feet aching from walking in circles around our own neighborhood for hours, paying close attention not only to the musicians who live amongst us, but also to the glorious urban gardens, architectural intricacies, and recycled design schemes of porches lining our streets.
Just as I was ready to call it a night, a metal band — called Fuck Tomb — started screaming next door. Instead of letting the performance lead me back to nightmare land, I went to the front and stood next to the moshers — enjoying the Porchfest-permitted paradox of becoming a valuable part of the crowd (an appreciative witness) while knowing little about the scene.
The whole day turned into a fusion of people, porches and perspectives — at times in ways that I never would have imagined, and other times in ways that sent me tumbling back into mental pandemonium. When it was time to fall back to sleep, my brain was, for once, empty and exhausted.
Whereas in other neighborhoods porchfest might be the end of the dream, West Philly is always filled with community events — like dollar strolls, farmer’s markets and weekly streetside book sales. And so long as I wake in West Philly as planned, I can gaze at the colorfully ornamental and affordable homes everyday … until the nightmare of gentrification (as seen by the $4,000 two-bedroom luxury Baltimore Avenue apartments that disrupted this year’s Porchfest) finally has its way.
