GARP FEST HIGHLIGHTS CHARM OF MAQUOKETA MUSIC VENUE

MAQUOKETA, Iowa — The floorboards of the barn shook as nearly 200 music festival-goers jumped to the screeching guitar and drum-smashing cacophonous crescendo from The Whigs’ 8-minute-plus finale of “Staying Alive.”

A middle-schooler wearing a camouflage hat and sleeveless denim jacket bobbed up and down next to a middle-aged man in a ponytail and T-shirt that read, “Drunk, High and Unemployed.”

Behind them, a mother in T-shirt and jeans danced alongside a 20-something wearing a black dress and brown hat as The Whigs’ lead singer and guitarist Parker Gispert dropped to his knees for a solo.

The Georgia trio’s raucous, no-frills rock sound struck a stark contrast to the tuneful, sorrowful acoustic set from Tulsa, Okla., singer-writer John Moreland, who took the stage earlier at Codfish Hollow Barnstormers.

“He couldn’t be more different than what we do,” said Whigs drummer Julian Dorio. “But it is so beautiful and inspiring, and you feel like you want to get up there and play your absolute best.”

It’s a “testament,” Dorio said, of the eclectic draw of the barn-turned-music-venue tucked into the rolling hillside of “nowhere, Iowa.”

An estimated 700 people flocked Friday and Saturday to Codfish Hollow for GARP, a two-day festival that brought nearly 30 acts to the farm near Maquoketa. (full article…)

BY THOMAS J. BARTON, Dubuque Telegraph Herald, September 11, 2016

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