Album Reviews
Movie Reviews
Concert Reviews
Past Concerts
Book Reviews

Top 10

Contact Us

Revelation Generation is a two day music festival that is held every labor day weekend in mid-New Jersey and is just about the perfect way to close out the summer festival season. Due to prior responsibilities, my radio show, I was unable to check out the fest until Saturday. I left Long Island on Saturday morning at 8:30 and arrived at the entrance to the festival sight exactly two hours later. Traffic being almost non-existent made the trip there a pleasant music filled experience. My intern, Chris Rogers, and I spent the time listening to new tunes from Dave Perkins and  various New York based independent acts.

After checking in at the press tent we wandered over to the New York Stage to check out "The Fold". They put on a good set of energetic rock n roll, the only down side was the lead singer's constant apologies to the audience for being an unknown commodity. I think the kids in the crowd would tend to disagree since they were singing along to most of the tunes. This is a band I would go see again & again. Up next was "Seabird", a competent band. The problem is that competent just doesn't cut it anymore. There was nothing to make them stand out from a hundred other bands that would be playing the clubs of New York City on any given night.

For this old DJ the Nashville Stage was the place to hang out though. Let me backtrack for a moment, there are three main stages at this festival. The Philadelphia Stage serves as the central point for the hard music groups, "August Burns Red" and so on. The New York Stage is the place for the top billed groups, "Barlow Girl", "Reliant K.", "Switchfoot" and so forth. The Nashville Stage handles the more acoustic and independent acts. Some of the high-points from the Nashville Stage for me at least were hearing and meeting singer/ songwriter Corey Crowder. Forget about the other guy with the same last name, this guy is the real deal. Other highlights were jazz bassist "Bernard Harris" who had the audience eating out of the palms of his hands and of course the thinking mans artist, Derek Webb. The highlight of the day for this stage was a solo acoustic performance from Jon Foreman. You could hardly move in the tent because it was so packed. Jon performed numbers from his five solo albums and was the hit of the day.

Back at the New York Stage, "Reliant K." and "Switchfoot" closed out the evening with amazing sets. I had almost forgotten what an excellent live band "Switchfoot" has become over the years. They smoked the joint!!! The perfect way to end the summer season is definitely a trip to New Jersey for Revelation Generation!

Chris MacIntosh aka Grandfather Rock