Grand Rapids Festival 2013: Some Local Spins Picks To Peruse
Posted: 6th June 2013 by John in Local Spins
From emerging act Spence & Friends to longtime fave Mid-Life Crisis, Festival covers the gamut of musical styles and sounds. But can a 13-year-old steal the show?Guitar Fest: Guitars will be twanging and reverberating everywhere at Grand Rapids’ Festival this weekend. This one happens to belong to Joe “LittleEdge” Heemstra. (Photo/Anna Sinkevics)
At 13, Joe Heemstra has barely scratched the surface as a musician, right?
But listen to this Grandville youngster smoothly and flawlessly match guitar whiz Joe Satriani’s “Summer Song” note for note, and it’s clear there’s something beyond special about this soft-spoken eighth-grader.
The electric guitar prodigy also known as “LittleEdge” will perform Sunday at Grand Rapids’ Festival of the Arts for the fourth year in a row, making him likely the youngest “seasoned” headliner at the three-day downtown celebration and making him a shoe-in as one of Local Spins’ “Best of Festival” picks for 2013.
Now a straight-A student at Grand Rapids’ City Middle School who also plays football, basketball and baseball, Heemstra first picked up a guitar at age 8 and has never looked back, diving headlong into guitar solos and classics by U2’s Edge (hence the nickname), Randy Rhoads, Eric Johnson and his hero, Satriani.
“I’m trying to improve myself technically,” says the hard-working teen, who even recently came up with his own guitar arrangement for “How Great Thou Art.” “It’s a challenge, that’s part of the fun of it. I love performing: That’s sort of the payoff.”
The son of Doug and Jeanine Heemstra of Grandville, Heemstra’s siblings demonstrate musical passion, too, with Grace, 12, singing in theater productions, and Danny, 10, a budding violinist.
Heemstra will perform a solo set to a musical backing track at noon Sunday on Festival’s Circle Stage at Rosa Parks Circle, with other summer gigs set for Holland’s street performer series. You can get a taste of his eye-popping talent in the Local Spins video below, taken earlier this week at West Coast Coffee in Grand Rapids.
“I like the atmosphere (of Festival) and how people can walk by and see it,” Heemstra says of performing at the event each year. “It’s easy to draw a crowd. It’s just a fun place to be.”
SO MANY BANDS, SO LITTLE SPACE
Heemstra’s “oh wow” talent aside, a couple of missives from different camps this week reminded me that no matter how hard one works to put a spotlight on Grand Rapids’ music scene, artists can become frustrated or slighted when their compelling music doesn’t get the attention or the audience they feel it deserves.
Festival creates just such a no-win situation: With more than 270 performances on six stages over three days, it’s a scary and daunting task to highlight the picks that make up the “Best of Festival” at LocalSpins.com.
As usual, some tried-and-true Festival veterans covering every imaginable genre will draw adoring audiences for weekend sets: The Schubert Male Chorus, Steve Hilger, Ralston Bowles, Steve Anzivino, Debra Perry, Ned Rouse, The Adams Family, Weatherheads, Valentiger, CoverStory, Embellish, Neil Jacobs, Nicholas James, Mind’s Eye, Lazy Blue Tunas, Blue Water Ramblers, PotatoeBabies, Willeys, Chupacobras, Bethel Abundant Life Center Choir, Karisa Wilson, Three’s a Crowd, Common Shiner, members of the Proulx family, the list goes on and on.
And then there are the budding newcomers making their first Festival appearances, eager to flaunt their musical wares for fresh audiences.
So, please consider these suggestions as merely a starting point to embrace all that Festival has to offer (not to mention all those tempting food booths) – a short list of over- and under-the-radar musical picks to build on. The full schedule and lineup of bands is available online at festivalgr.org/guide/.
Just make sure you get there and cheer your favorite performers: They deserve your support.
- See more at: http://localspins.com/page/3/#sthash.0vnyncuC.dpuf
From emerging act Spence & Friends to longtime fave Mid-Life Crisis, Festival covers the gamut of musical styles and sounds. But can a 13-year-old steal the show?Guitar Fest: Guitars will be twanging and reverberating everywhere at Grand Rapids’ Festival this weekend. This one happens to belong to Joe “LittleEdge” Heemstra. (Photo/Anna Sinkevics)
At 13, Joe Heemstra has barely scratched the surface as a musician, right?
But listen to this Grandville youngster smoothly and flawlessly match guitar whiz Joe Satriani’s “Summer Song” note for note, and it’s clear there’s something beyond special about this soft-spoken eighth-grader.
The electric guitar prodigy also known as “LittleEdge” will perform Sunday at Grand Rapids’ Festival of the Arts for the fourth year in a row, making him likely the youngest “seasoned” headliner at the three-day downtown celebration and making him a shoe-in as one of Local Spins’ “Best of Festival” picks for 2013.
Now a straight-A student at Grand Rapids’ City Middle School who also plays football, basketball and baseball, Heemstra first picked up a guitar at age 8 and has never looked back, diving headlong into guitar solos and classics by U2’s Edge (hence the nickname), Randy Rhoads, Eric Johnson and his hero, Satriani.
“I’m trying to improve myself technically,” says the hard-working teen, who even recently came up with his own guitar arrangement for “How Great Thou Art.” “It’s a challenge, that’s part of the fun of it. I love performing: That’s sort of the payoff.”
The son of Doug and Jeanine Heemstra of Grandville, Heemstra’s siblings demonstrate musical passion, too, with Grace, 12, singing in theater productions, and Danny, 10, a budding violinist.
Heemstra will perform a solo set to a musical backing track at noon Sunday on Festival’s Circle Stage at Rosa Parks Circle, with other summer gigs set for Holland’s street performer series. You can get a taste of his eye-popping talent in the Local Spins video below, taken earlier this week at West Coast Coffee in Grand Rapids.
“I like the atmosphere (of Festival) and how people can walk by and see it,” Heemstra says of performing at the event each year. “It’s easy to draw a crowd. It’s just a fun place to be.”
SO MANY BANDS, SO LITTLE SPACE
Heemstra’s “oh wow” talent aside, a couple of missives from different camps this week reminded me that no matter how hard one works to put a spotlight on Grand Rapids’ music scene, artists can become frustrated or slighted when their compelling music doesn’t get the attention or the audience they feel it deserves.
Festival creates just such a no-win situation: With more than 270 performances on six stages over three days, it’s a scary and daunting task to highlight the picks that make up the “Best of Festival” at LocalSpins.com.
As usual, some tried-and-true Festival veterans covering every imaginable genre will draw adoring audiences for weekend sets: The Schubert Male Chorus, Steve Hilger, Ralston Bowles, Steve Anzivino, Debra Perry, Ned Rouse, The Adams Family, Weatherheads, Valentiger, CoverStory, Embellish, Neil Jacobs, Nicholas James, Mind’s Eye, Lazy Blue Tunas, Blue Water Ramblers, PotatoeBabies, Willeys, Chupacobras, Bethel Abundant Life Center Choir, Karisa Wilson, Three’s a Crowd, Common Shiner, members of the Proulx family, the list goes on and on.
And then there are the budding newcomers making their first Festival appearances, eager to flaunt their musical wares for fresh audiences.
So, please consider these suggestions as merely a starting point to embrace all that Festival has to offer (not to mention all those tempting food booths) – a short list of over- and under-the-radar musical picks to build on. The full schedule and lineup of bands is available online at festivalgr.org/guide/.
Just make sure you get there and cheer your favorite performers: They deserve your support.
- See more at: http://localspins.com/page/3/#sthash.0vnyncuC.dpuf