Red Nation Music Fest
The 2011 Red Nation Music Fest has a very good chance of living up to their tag lines “The Largest Native Music Festival EVER!” and “A Native Coachella” because the line up this year is so strong. You know when the doors open at 9:30am and the headliners go on 12 hours later that it is going to be a marathon day. This year the RNMF is at Warehouse 21 in Santa Fewhich is known for its positive involvement in the community and also being an integral component in some great events. There are over 20 native acts performing on the W21 main stage for the Red Nation Music Fest. Here are some I think you should check out.
Indigenous on stage at 3pm is such a good blues rock band you will be happy you made it this far in this blog. It’s like Stevie Ray Vaughn and Santana on a road trip and jamming out some tunes to the highway winds. So good. They have been around for a bit, since ’98, and have earned many awards, and have landed in the top five blues albums on Billboard for the albums Circle, Indigenous, and Chasing the Sun. B.B. King has even publicly said he’s a fan of these guys.
The three piece Blackfire is on at 6pm and is an amazing Alter-Native-Punk band from Flagstaff. They are heavily political and write powerful and yet catchy anthems about the rough subjects like genocide, government oppression, and domestic violence. Blackfire have been on the Vans Warped Tour and also won NAMA Group of the Year in 2005 for Woody Guthrie Singles.
At 7:30 the founder of the festival Joanelle Romero herself takes the stage with her band the Joanelle Romero Band featuring Noah Watts & Montano Rain & Trixie Merkin. Joanelle Romero while also being a well known film and TV actress, and activist, is also one hell of a singer. She has also been named “The First Lady” of American Indian Heritage Month by American Indian Spiritual Leaders.
With 20 acts from different genres this year’s RNMF is very strong and there are numerous things going on at the Red Nation Celebration as a whole that if a band doesn’t flip your switch I’m sure you can find something that does.
rednationmusicfest.com