Sunday, June 11 was the day that the music came out in Santa Rosa to Railroad Square. The festival started at noon and went on until about 7pm(ish) officially. Organized annually and superbly by Josh Windmiller. The day was a great success! The weather was perfect and the sounds were amazing. The bands varied in genre like a multicolor rainbow - very appropriate for Pride month. From Americana with The Musers to old school punk with Lucky Ol' Bones and everything in between. Starting with lots of fab original music by Meli Levi, Hush, Gill Brothers, Tru Lyric, Lee Vandeveer, Sebastian St. James and so many more. There were no cover or tribute bands playing at all at the RSMF.
The town came out in droves for this event. After the last few years of pandemic, people are becoming less afraid to mingle and speaking for myself, that made this event even better. When something like this or live music in general had a time of being too unsafe to attend, and now all is so much better in the world regarding covid, I for one, am feeling so much more grateful for days like this!
Although I wasn't able to attend every band that performed on the day, I did manage to see a lot. The festival is not that far apart that one cannot make it from one stage to the other in reasonable time. So it enables people to see so many more bands play. And that day I saw a lot of bands. Apart from my regular favorites like Sebastian st James, and The Musers, Meli Levi impressed me with her original style of music that we may be seeing on huge stages in the not too distant future. Fingers crossed! She is super talented and a nice person to boot! Ben Dubin was her bass player of the day (he also plays with David Luning) and Shane Schlick was on the drums. No doubt I'm going to make sure I see her play again soon. The surprise of the day came when I was chatting with friends and I heard the sound of old school punk in the distance. One of the friends I was chatting with discounted it (he's a baddass bass player and music snob and prides himself on it), but for me, the old school punk called my name and so I excused myself and quickly approached the Stanroy Stage (the main stage) and found a wonderful 7 piece punk band, Lucky Ol' Bones. I loved this set!
The whole day was so fun. Lots of friendly familiar faces. Many that I haven't seen in several years. Everyone seemed to be having so much fun. Great to see! The event was so well organized by "The Captain" Josh Windmiller. Josh has a talent for putting together successful music events. Thanks to Josh and his team for a magical musical day in Santa Rosa!
© Cheryl Alterman Photography 2023
Photo Credit of The Music Soup / me - Dave Barry