In case nobody told you, this summer, Philly is pretty much in love with free, outdoor concerts featuring local bands, beverages and everywhere, dogs and babies! And every couple of days, we’re getting word of new ones cropping up, whether it’s a whole series in Penn Treaty Park or one-day-only events like our stage in the Piazza At Schmidt’s during the 2nd Street Festival/Popped. But this weekend, we recognize two of the parks that started the whole park-jams fever we’ll be curing all summer: Clark Park, to the west, and Liberty Lands, to the east. In a perfect world, we’d send 50% of Generation NoLibs to Clark Park, and West Philly would send us half of their finest dog/baby/hipster funpacks. And at last, there would be UNITY! Among Whole Foods shoppers, at least. In any case, here’s the rundown:

Best Fest

Location: Clark Park, between Baltimore Avenue, Woodland Avenue, 43rd Street and 45th Street. 1-7PM. (More info here.)
Line-up: Meg Baird, U.S. Girls, Brown Recluse Sings, Serpents of Wisdom, My Mind, Hot Guts, Drums Like Machine Guns, Pony Pants, The Chimeras, Magnet City Kids, Paul Green School of Rock, BOBO, The Blenders and more. Pretty impressive!
Vibe: Indie-er than indie, but like we said, pretty impressive nonetheless, whether it’s the gorgeous folk stylings of Meg Baird or the avant-Shirelles noise of U.S. Girls or the pop delights of Brown Recluse Sings, this year’s Best Fest has something for everybody, yet simultaneously pushes the limits of what the neighborhood park jam can do musically.

Northern Liberties Music Festival

Location: Liberty Lands, between Second, American, Poplar and Wildey Streets. 4:30-10PM.
Line-up: Sir Charles Latham, Parsnip Revolt, Social Hall, Twisted Kites, Bloody Catholics, Audible and Sweat Heart.
Vibe: For years now, Bardo Pond drummer Ed Farnsworth has booked only bands that have members living in or around the NoLibs area to play the fest, which year in, year out, makes it a pretty true representation of the neighborhood’s varied and vibrant talents. It also gives the affair the feel of a real neighborhood festival, and the crowd follows suit. All types of folks here, and the music is only a part of it. The neighborhood association folks sell beer to raise money, there’s usually a flea market that starts earlier in the day, and frisbee, dogs, babies and burgers abound. It’s a real good time.

That only leaves one major, major factor: The weather. As of this writing, we’re lookin’ good, but the NoLibs Music Fest has been felled by foul weather so many times that it’s not even funny anymore. The upshot, of course, is that Northern Liberties is apparently the city’s capital for indoor, daytime drinking, so nobody’s gonna sweat this too much. But it shouldn’t be a problem: In fact, we’re packing a cooler and sunblock now!

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 12:17 pm.