the show must go on
Sixth Street blackout left Oh Snap! Festival headliners unable to play; bignames to reunite for free show
- Whiskey Shivers played (barefoot) to a packed house on Saturday night.Photo by Jon Shapley
- The festival lost power shortly before midnight on Saturday, but one-man-bandShakey Graves gave a performance to be remembered as he continued to play in aroom lit by two flashlights and an iPhone app (with a very small battery-poweredamp which he wore on his belt) until owners had to clear everyone from thebuilding.Photo by Jon Shapley
The third annual Oh Snap! Festival will not only go down in memory for being so successful it broke even within hours of the first day, it will go down for putting together such a heavy-hitting lineup of bands that the power went out across bar laden Sixth Street.
"It was unprecedented," says The Parish house manager and Oh Snap! co-founder Travis Newman. "I've never seen anything like it."
While, in reality, Saturday night's Sixth Street blackout was due to an underground electrical fire that killed several transformers in the downtown area, it could not have come at a more inopportune time for Oh Snap! with some of the most anticipated headliners yet to play that night.
Even so, the crowd response to the powerless ordeal was nothing but positive during and after the fact. "It sort of made it more epic," says Newman. "Shakey Graves played a really beautiful set with a handheld amp while [the audience] held up their phones to light them."
Despite valiant the-show-must-go-on efforts by both bands and bookers, Oh Snap! has decided to host an extended encore on Feb. 10 at The Parish. The headliners that were unable to play have agreed to gather and perform for one final, unanticipated evening, include Ume, Smoke and Feathers, Little Lo, The Bang Bang Theodores and Wild Moccasins.
Anyone who had a ticket for Saturday night of Oh Snap! is invited to attend Feb. 10, free of charge. And if you missed out on the action the first time around, it's your lucky day — tickets will also be sold at the door for five bucks a pop. Let the party — and fundraising — continue.
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Check out CultureMap's photo coverage of Oh Snap! 2012.