Coast Is Clear Music Festival

 

December 7, 2021

Coast Is Clear Music Festival

It has been a while since we have attended an honest to goodness music festival, Covid has pretty much put a damper on what we would normally have been attending, but when our friend Billy Kearins announced that he would be hosting a return of the Coast Is Clear Music and Arts Festival on a much larger scale than in previous years right here in Key West, we were excited, and I ordered tickets right away.

Initially Billy and the folks at Coast organized the first Coast Is Clear Fest to help in recovery efforts from Hurricane Irma back in 2017. The festival started small with just a few of Billy’s musician friends who came down that first year to help out, the festival has grown slowly each year, but this year has grown into a top-notch fairly large-scale affair with the help of a new partner.

The Key West Art and Historical Society has stepped in and offered financial assistance as well as their newly refurbished lawn at East Martello Tower to host the event, which has allowed it to increase in both size and scope as well as in the quality of the bands that were on hand to perform.

The event kicked off with a special VIP show at Blue Heaven restaurant on the Friday evening prior to the main portion of the festival and featured a few of the acts who would be playing at the festival performing on the intimate and very cool small stage behind Blue Heaven.

This is one of my favorite spots in all of Key West because it is so much in the spirit of the old Key West that was so much more prevalent when I first moved here thirty years ago. The funky, cool vibe that Blue Heaven evokes was perfect for a great night of music headlined by the enigmatic G-Love. G-Love laid down the funk and played a great set as did Susto and even local favorites Skank.

The festival on Saturday was even cooler. I headed out early to check out the first few bands, including the opening set by Susto, followed by G-Love, Liz Cooper and Langhorne Slim. Kathy joined me at East Martello as dis a large number of our local friends, who like us were fairly starved for live music. Kathy arrived in time to catch the set by Rayland Baxter, who had a full band with him on this trip to Key West, 

Baxter provides a much fuller experience with the full band compared to when we last saw him playing at Coast a few years ago as a solo act and I enjoyed this performance so much more. The act that I was most looking forward to seeing was Phosphorescent, who did the opposite of Baxter, playing his first solo show without a band in years.

We had seen Phosphorescent with his full band a few years ago at the Innings Festival in Phoenix and I was so excited that he was playing right here in Key West and I was not disappointed. He delivered an amazing acoustic solo set that was one of the best live performances I saw this year and it was just so amazing. 

I probably could have left and been content, but we stayed to watch the headlining act, The Black Pumas, a band that we had not seen previously, were not all that familiar with and yet they delivered a remarkable set as well. I think I was only familiar with a single song, but I was in the minority of the crowd assembled at East Martello which sang and danced along with almost every song. It was a terrific way to wrap a wonderful festival.

https://www.coastisclearfest.com/