Napa, CA, is one of the most beautiful and picturesque locations in the country and is home to one of the finest food, wine, and music festivals – BottleRock.
Each year on Memorial Day weekend musicians, music fans, oenophiles, and foodies from all over the world descend on the sleepy town of Napa. Napa is the seat of a region well known for its world-class wine growing, gourmet food, and California lifestyle.
This weekend, the best of the best of music, wine, and food come together in a true multi-cultural California experience. BottleRock always has a wide variety of food, drink, and music to satisfy all music fans. This year was headlined by several heavyweights of the music industry. Each day, the festival starts at noon and ends at about 10-10:30 PM. Several restaurants and bars in town stay open after the festivities to cater to the late-night crowd. For the hardiest music fans, with the purchase of an extra ticket, each night offers after-festival shows/parties in town and the surrounding bay area with bands playing at the festival.
Sunday afternoon on the Truly stage and the third Metallica-Family band got its opportunity to stand on its own to shine. Taipei Houston made their BottleRock debut. Taipei Houston is a local two-piece rock band from San Francisco, featuring brothers Layne (Lead vocals, Bass) and Myles (Drums, Guitar) Ulrich. The Ulrich brothers’ power duo play an energetic brand of rock. While the band’s name is officially Taipei Houston whoever created the AV slide for their background may be looking for a new job as the background read sic “Taipai” Houston. All the same, the brothers played a good set and held their own with their musical “cousins.”
Tessa Violet was soon to follow the brothers on the Truly stage. The YouTube and multimedia star, actress, model, and singer-songwriter did not disappoint. Her sophisticated pop songs can, at times, be dark and are juxtaposed against her sunny and positive demeanor. Nevertheless, Tessa is a polished performer and knows her audience, an afternoon slot brought out her fans in en force. Tessa is backed by Dante Cimadamore on bass and guitar, while the spectacular drumming is handled by the always smiling Caitlin Kalafus.
Grandson made an appearance on the Verizon stage in the afternoon. Despite having never seen Grandson before and admittedly never heard his music, he did not disappoint. Festivals are the place to see and hear new things. Some leave an impression and others don’t. Grandson falls into the former category. Grandson put on an energetic and wild performance. His lyrics were topical and with recent gun violence tragedies fresh on everyone’s mind he did not shy away from social commentary. Grandson fans, and new converts who were they were treated to a performance that they soon won’t forget.
By Sunday afternoon and having spent some time in the days prior to and during the festival getting to know Eliza and the Delusionals and seeing them perform in smaller confines, it was now time to see them bring their Aussie flavor of rock n roll to the Truly stage in front of a large audience. Allergies be damned (the group had been suffering from them since they arrived a few weeks before the festival), it was time and they really seemed to enjoy themselves. They made appearances on the aforementioned outdoor Truly stage as well as the VIP Village acoustic stage, taking full advantage of each opportunity to play lively sets and win new fans.
Late Sunday afternoon, the Verizon stage saw a performance from Latin pop star Pitbull. Pitbull brought his high-energy Latin hip hop, reggaeton, Miami sound, and dance show to an excited crowd, who were all ready to dance. Pitbull was his usual cool and had plenty of beautiful dancers surrounding him at all times. Dressed in all black, Pitbull drew a large crowd. His music creates energy and pumps up his fans and kept them dancing for the entire one-hour set.
In what would be seen like musical oil and water, but was not at all, Pitbull was followed by Luke Combs. Many of the attendees were fans who had stayed over from the Pitbull set. The fans sang along to all of the North Carolina native’s hits. Despite Luke’s set being opposite that of P!nk, he had a dedicated and large crowd for his performance. The award wining country singer’s set started around golden hour as the sun went down and cool air came over the Napa Valley, it just felt like the perfect time for his fans to enjoy his set.
Sunday night, the incomparable P!nk headlined Jam Cellars main stage. P!nk has a fanatical following and they were there en force to cheer her on. She ran through hit after hit, even sprinkling in quite a few covers including the 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up,” Bishop Briggs’ “River,” Kris Kristofferson’s “Me and Bobby McGee,” and the Zeppelin/Joan Baez cover of “Babe I’m Gonna Leave You” in the style of Led Zeppelin with a scorching guitar solo to end the song while P!nk made one of several costume changes on the night. At one point during her 90 minute set, P!nk sang a duet with her daughter, “Cover Me In Sunshine.” P!nk closed out the festival with her now-famous high flying aerial acrobatic act above the audience while singing her song “So What.”
Diversity, acceptance, and the California lifestyle are major themes throughout BottleRock, and it delivers in spades. Food, drink, music, and most importantly humanity. There are too many bands to mention here that are on their way up in the musical world, and that have a large following or are just starting to build that following that are worth paying attention to. BottleRock is a great place to make those musical discoveries while enjoying a world-class festival. The BottleRock Festival is geared to bringing a bucket list experience while maintaining an everyone is welcome atmosphere.
