Local artists rise above the Guster tsunami.

It’s a porch party with Voided Shape, The Most, Will Tell Aim, Good & You?, Battlemode, Otis Shanty, Cosmic Rush, Ruby Grove, Class President, Dan DiBacco and more.

The Jamaica Plain Music Festival is coming!

Also known as the JP Music Fest. That’s got more zing.

It will be the 12th edition, coming your way in September, and each year is organized with tender love and care by a neighborhood community that loves live music and knows how to have a good time. This is a bottom-up affair, by and for the people, and it needs your support.

If you missed the annual Smell The Love fundraiser, you can still donate below!

If you missed the fundraiser show in March at the American Legion Hall with Rick Berlin, Colonel Broccoli and the Legion Basement Band, and Fantastic Trees, you can still donate below!

And if you won’t or didn’t make it out to Midway Cafe on June 4 in time to catch the annual classic fundraiser John Casey’s JP Bar Wars, you can still donate below!

Do your part to keep Jamaica Plain fresh AND funky.

It was the porch to end all fests.

It was the fest to end all porches.

The 2024 Somerville Porchfest all of a sudden, at the last second, in the eleventh hour got a little too big for its britches when international touring act (with local roots) Guster decided to set up camp on a porch somewhere around the intersection of Cedar and Aberdeen in the 2-4PM slot.

Massive crowds of massholes, and out-of-stater college kids enjoying an afternoon lark in the runup to summer. Hard seltzer flowed like wine that flowed like water in geography with heavy rainfall. Somerville Wine & Spirits shops were doing banging business.

And why not? Enjoy yourself. Somerville proved it was a town that can have a good time without making a mess of itself. Not aware of any major disturbances as a result of the good times carousing. Just good vibes.

If you missed Somerville Porchfest, here are a few items to know.

The band roster was massive – there was going to be a crowd with or without Guster. Check out the band map at the Porchfest site. All those Google pins rolling across Somerville west to east, like a tsunami of sound.

There were three time slots in the schedule: 12-2PM, 2-4PM, and 4-6PM. Most of the early slots were in the west, most of the later slots were in the east, so you could follow the fest as it unfolded west to east like a seasonal migration of wildebeest.

Were the performances actually on porches? Sometimes!

The Dan DiBacco Trio, which looked a lot more like a duo, played on a paved slab in front of a tripledecker.

Ruby Grove, Cosmic Rush, and Class President were legit porchers.

Otis Shanty set up on the lawn of an apartment block.

Battlemode claimed their location was a former firehouse at 51 Laurel Street, though the building lacked the signature “big fucking barn-type door” you’d normally associate with a former firehouse. Dubious claim! Prove me wrong!

And Voided Shape played on a four-stack bill with Will Tell Aim, Good & You?, and The Most in the backyard of their tripledecker, abutting the MBTA traintracks. Not a bad locale if you want to make a lot of noise and not bother the neighbors…any more than they’re already bothered.

But it was Somerville Porchfest. No complaints allowed. Good vibes only. Let’s do it again next year.

Photo Gallery