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Camp Euforia expected to draw 2,000 music fans

By Loren Keller

If you're a local musician playing a gig in Iowa City, on a really good night you might draw an audience of more than a hundred people.

Move the instruments and sound equipment outdoors, and it's likely you'll be playing in front of thousands.

Euforquestra's live set was heard by several thousand people last week between the Afrobeat/reggae/funk band's performances at the 80/35 festival in Des Moines last Friday and the Iowa City Jazz Festival's main stage the following afternoon.

Eric Quiner, who plays keyboards and sings with the band and is organizing the Camp Euforia festival set for Friday and Saturday, expects to play for another couple thousand people during two sets at the festival near Lone Tree, Iowa this weekend.

"It's not just the bar crowd, it's the whole community," says Quiner. "That's exactly the kind of audience we like to play for. People of all ages can appreciate our music and we want to play for the whole spectrum."

Euforquestra is certainly no stranger on the festival circuit, having played at gatherings throughout the country including the Feel Good Fest in Amherst, Wis., the Sweet Pea Fest in Bozeman, Mt., and the Mountain Fair and Nedfests in Colorado.

Quiner says the band was well-received at the 80/35 festival last week.

"We played on a sidestage and it was almost as big as the main stage at Jazz Fest. They had a $400,000 talent budget. I think Summer of the Arts does a hell of a lot with less than that throughout the whole year, for everything," he says. "I was very impressed with 80/35, but the fan base for the jazz festival I wouldn't give up for the world. No. 1, because of the type of person that comes out to a jazz festival is very intent on listening to what you have to say as a band, but also because it's our hometown."

Iowa 'a stop for the nation'

While the simultaneous festivals in Iowa might have presented a difficult choice for some music fans, Quiner views that as a good thing.

"It made Iowa a stop for the nation," he says. "(80/35) is not a jazz festival; the Flaming Lips are not going to bring in the same people that Medeski, Martin & Wood are. There's some crossover, but not that much. I think it's doing great things to have them both on the same weekend."

Quiner expects a mixed crowd at Camp Euforia -- "the community crowd and the college hippie demographic, families and a lot of twentysomethings" -- and the Camp Euforia audience will have at least one advantage: they'll get to hear everything. The festival's 22 bands will play hour-long sets, altering between two different stages.

"You'll never have to make a choice out here as to which band you want to see," he says. "It's a seamless set from one stage to the next, a constant stream of music."

Tickets are $40 in advance and $45 at the gate. The full schedule of bands is posted here.

'Totally different vibes'

Eddie McKinley, who plays tenor saxophone for The Diplomats of Solid Sound, is another musician gigging at three Iowa festivals this week. The Iowa City band followed Euforquestra on the same stage at 80/35 Friday and McKinley played with the Rod Pierson Big Band on the Jazz Festival's main stage Saturday.

The Diplomats of Solid Sound are set to play their snappy, sophisticated take on 60s soul, R&B and funk on Camp Euforia's side stage at 8:30 p.m. Friday.

"They were totally different vibes, just because they were different musical festivals," says McKinley, who joined the Diplomats in March 2006 and played his first gig with the band opening for Wilco at the Val Air Ballroom in Des Moines. "We had a really great turnout at 80/35. We were on a side stage but fortunately in the shade."

The Diplomats of Solid Sound released a new, self-titled CD this week. It is their first record featuring The Diplomettes (singers Sarah Cram, Katharine Ruestow and Abbie Sawyer.)

Chicago's five-piece acoustic/electric Cornmeal will play their high-energy, progressive brand of bluegrass, Americana and folk at Camp Euforia at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Nurturing a growing national profile, Cornmeal picked up their first New Groove Jammy award at a May ceremony in New York City and has remained busy on the festival circuit all summer, including their first appearance as a band at the Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tenn., where they played three sets. Over the Fourth of July weekend, they played four sets at the three-day High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, Ca. After Camp Euforia, the band is scheduled to play at least nine more festivals by summer's end.

Bass player Chris Gangi, who attended the University of Iowa, says festivals mean big exposure, though the band still enjoys playing smaller venues like the Yacht Club in Iowa City.

"It's all pretty much about energy," he says. "Being outdoors is a wonderful experience; you can't beat it. But the reason we play a show like the Yacht Club is because we still really thrive on that kind of intimate energy you get from the audience. When you're outdoors at a festival and the stages are bigger, there's a massive amount of people but you don't get that kind of up-close and personal intimate relationship with the audience. It's a give-and-take on both scenes, we love working both sides of the fence."

Bands find creative ways to cope with gas prices

For the bands, playing a festival usually brings a bigger paycheck to help offset record gas prices. But you won't catch Quiner complaining about the $140 it takes to fill the tank of Euforquestra's 15-passenger cargo van, a 1997 Ford Econoline.

"It's an odd stance to take, but rising gas prices are the absolute best thing that could ever happen for this country right now, because the higher gas prices go the more opportunity there will be for alternative energies," he says. "We are staying in business and that same mentality is inspiring us. After Camp Euforia we're going to convert our van into a grease van that runs on vegetable oil."

Cornmeal's Gangi says higher fuel prices has forced his band to be more efficient and find creative ways to cope. The band tries to book as many sets as possible for each festival stop (they played three at Bonnaroo) and took flights to California last weekend because it was cheaper than loading up their 40-foot diesel bus and driving there.

"I remember when the prices two years ago were going up past $2, $2.50," he says. "For our band, when we were barely scraping by, that had a massive impact on our growth. We really had to pick and choose our battles going out there. Now that the band's a little more stable, it's still affecting us but we are able to sustain it."

Fan support, Gangi says, has helped a lot.

"We hear more and more, at least from our merch manager, that people are coming out and buying merchandise because they understand how bad it is," he says. "It's the fans who are really helping us through this hard time. They're out there paying the ticket prices and they've not complaining about a higher ticket price or a higher merch price because they want us to keep going. They want the whole music scene to keep propelling and this could literally devastate it. Maybe not for the million-dollar bands who can't buy a second home, but for bands at our level, it's a pretty tough factor."

Quiner says most bands he encounters on Euforquestra’s circuit appear to be staying in business.

"I still see the same bands, our peers, traveling as much as they can. It's a timing thing along with talent and drive. At first, you travel not for the money. As you keep on going to these markets it starts becoming more and more economical," Quiner says, adding that his band has had some success scouting out area community festivals when playing club dates on the road.

"Last year we did that in Montana, they invited us back, and we played in front of 10,000 people at a festival," he says. "We signed autographs and felt more surreal than we ever have in our lives."