How The Flood Helped Launch FestivALL
#613 / Flood Time Capsule: 2005
Twenty-one years ago this week, The Flood was on hand to help Charleston launch its new FestivALL, celebrating regional music. That inaugural three-day event came out swinging, with more than 120 performances and exhibits all around the capital city.
The Flood’s assigned venue was a covered stage at Slack Plaza on Summers Street between Lee and Quarrier, where the guys did a 40-minute show … and got 20 seconds of face-time from WVAH-TV, as seen in the vintage video below:
FestivALL was the vision of a small group of city leaders who pitched Charleston Mayor Danny Jones with the idea for a citywide arts and entertainment festival that would include music, theater, fine art and dance.
In the first year, between 15,000 and 20,000 people participated in one or more of the FestivALL events.
The Call-Back
Well-received, The Flood was invited back for the 2007 edition of the FestivALL, this time to play at Charleston’s wonderful old Capital Theater.
“We got there in plenty of time,” Charlie Bowen told his mom in an email later, “so we could wander around backstage of the funky old theater on Summers Street.” Peggy Robertson had grown up in Charleston, remembering the Capitol well, so she was pleased when Charlie told her, “It’s a pretty little house these days, having been refurbished and renovated out the wazoo over the years.”
For the job, The Flood actually was billed as “Joe Dobbs and Friends,” which gave the guys fodder for some pre-gig jokes.
For instance, Charlie called Dave Peyon and said, “Hey, would you like to be Joe Dobbs’ friend this weekend? It’ll be worth about a hundred dollars to ya.”
To that Dave said, “Well, that’s at the bottom of my scale, but hell, I’ve not got any better offers for that day...”
The show went well. “We had a respectable enough crowd,” Charlie noted. “One of the problems with FestivALL is that there’s stuff going on literally all over town, so few venues are getting much of a crowd. But we had a loud, happy bunch and we gave ‘em a good mix of stuff.”
The event also was the second of several times that The Flood got to share the stage with a raucous Morgantown band called Stewed Mulligan, which Bowen called “one of the good ol’ hippy bands that’s still around.” As reported earlier, the groups had shared the bill 15 months earlier at a FOOTMAD show at the WV Cultural Center.
Meanwhile, on the Film Front
In other news, Randy Yohe’s award-winning “These Days” documentary about The Flood has received an honorary mention by the 8th annual Bedford International Film Festival in neighboring Virginia.
This brings to a half dozen the number of honors the film has received this year. As noted recently:
“These Boys” also has been named an official selection of ARFF Paris // International Film Festival.
The Cine Paris Film Festival has honored Yohe as best director.
The East Village New York Film Festival made the film as its January selection for “Best Feature Documentary.”
Texas’s Austin International Art Festival selected the film as a semi-finalist.
The Appalachian Film Festival screened the documentary as the featured film on the opening night last March.
Right now “These Boys” is working its way through film festivals like these, but we look forward to sharing the completed film with everyone later this year. We’ll keep you posted.