King Daddy Over the Moon
Moon Over Salem 2024
Prince Daddy & the Hyena close out Ames Hall at Moon Over Salem on Saturday, 14 September 2024.
Actor Observer, Kal Marks, Hell Beach, Dropbear, The Freqs, and Return Address perform live at the YMCA stage.
Goodbye Hope Fest, hello Moon Over Salem.
Moon Over Salem is a partial benefit for two artist scholarships. So says MOON:
“We aim to support the community by raising funds for local scholarship programs.
“A portion from the proceeds from our annual festival will go towards awarding two scholarships to students pursuing music or the arts in college.
“Each school year, the scholarships will be awarded to one NAGLY youth, and a Student from the Greater Salem area, helping to nurture the next generation of artists and musicians.”
The one-day music festival Moon Over Salem, FKA Hope Fest, shined on a hustling & bustling Saturday in Salem.
Were we still in September? You don’t even want to know what kinds of crowds come out of the tourist woodwork closer to Halloween. As it was, a beautiful day and night of music, tightrope-walking the line between summer and fall, with more than thirty bands performing at seven stages.
And if you had one of those little green cloth wristbands (don’t overtighten them!), you had a front row seat for the entire moveable feast.
By its nature, Moon Over Salem is a decentralized affair, spreading out stages of musical joy all across the face of downtown Salem. But if you were going to pick one spot to label central HQ this year (last year as Old Town Hall), you’d probably pick Ames Hall.
Ames Hall
The storied building with multiple stories boasts a venerable history, but had fallen into a state of disrepair, and primarily served as an indoor basketball court for the local YMCA. A renovation in 2014 spruced it up to its original marbled grandeur. The YMCA still uses the building, but now can take advantage of a full-service stage for theatrical productions. Good for music concerts too.
Headliner Prince Daddy & the Hyena were scheduled to close out the evening, but not before a laundry list of local underground music ran through the spin cycle. Return Address, The Freqs, Dropbear, Hell Beach, Kal Marks, and Actor Observer filled the bill, which, after some early tech difficulties, animated the super-sized stage. The visual effects of Digital Awareness have never looked better than they did at Ames Hall that night, splattered across the tall, broad amphitheater-style backdrop.
Kal Marks
Kal Marks performed on the wings of their recently-released Wasteland Baby. Maybe it’s just the spooky season approaching, but there were some haunting textures on a few songs off the new album. Wobbly vocal effects, creepy crawly samples, odd funhouse musical themes. It’s Joe Bob Briggs Last Drive-In stuff, in addtion to the usual post hardcord, late capitalism fits of apoplexy.
How about that Prince Daddy & the Hyena? Last year’s Hope Fest had tons of acts, but nothing you’d shake a stick at and call a “headliner.” This year’s Moon Over Salem signaled a more ambitious approach to filling out the top of the bill. Unlike another local underground music fest, Nice Fest, the Salem organizers weren’t bound by an ideological or programmatic commitment to booking purely local (or “local-adjacent”) acts. So Moon Over Salem could look far and wide for the name they wanted at the top of the bill.
Prince Daddy
& the Hyena
As it turns out, “far and wide” was Albany, New York. The post punk pop rockers Prince Daddy & the Hyena made the quick side trip to Salem in advance of a two-month tour that will take them all over the western and southern territories of the continental US. Locals can catch them back in the area on December 14 at the Palladium in Worcester.
What’s next for Moon Over Salem? You’ve got to ask the organizers, MOON. Seems like they’ve created a kind of template for a locally-supported fest. The inaugural edition of Moon Over Salem was a success, and if the local support is there, it’s a success that could be repeated for years.
But you don’t want to just repeat an event, however successful. You want to grow it, develop it, refine it, nurture it, cultivate it, tend to it lovingly like a prized Tamagotchi Pet. What are some areas in which Moon Over Salem could grow?
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