The fifth installment of Maverick Music Festival boasted bands such as Bastille, The Naked and Famous, De La Soul and Young the Giant on April 7 and 8.
Maverick took place at La Villita Historic Arts District in downtown San Antonio. Maverick Plaza hosted the main stage. Local artists, bands and DJs were featured on the Arneson River Theatre and the Juarez stage.
La Villita featured the Bizarre Bazaar: a collection of local street vendors selling food, drinks, clothing and vintage knick-knacks.
Inside Maverick Plaza, the festival offered little in the way of food. Local vendors offered four flavors of gorditas and fruit cups.
One of the festival’s sponsors was Cerveza Pacifico. The brand plastered the festival with advertisements and yellow 12 ounce cans. Various vendors gave out free beer salts and koozies.
Generationals, Book of Love, De La Soul and headliner Young the Giant were Fridays lineup at La Villita.
Irvine, Calif. natives Young the Giant admitted to the crowd the band had never been to San Antonio before.
The band performed every song off its 2016 album, “Home of the Strange” except for “Elsewhere.”
Lead vocalist Sameer Gadhia’s rich and resonant voice cut through the audience chatter during softer tunes such as “Titus was Born,” “Firelight” and “Art Exhibit.”
Young the Giant commandeered the crowd from start to finish with hits such as “Something to Believe In,” “Apartment,” “Mind Over Matter” and crowd favorite “Cough Syrup.” The latter is one of the songs the band is most known for with oft-quoted lyrics, “life’s too short to even care at all.”
While beautifully crooning, Gadhia occasionally played a mean cowbell and wistful ukulele.
The encore saw Gadhia don a dazzling sequined jacket over his blue denim jumpsuit. To the delight of the crowd, Gadhia slid across stage during “Silvertongue.”
The band ended the set with its first single and crowd favorite “My Body.”
The foot traffic in Maverick Plaza increased from Friday to Saturday.
Hours after Swimming with Bears took the stage at 2 p.m. on Saturday, fans sported the band T-shirts for sale at the merch table. Swimming with Bears recently toured with Panic! At the Disco and Weezer. SWB will play Shady Grove in Austin on April 20.
Saturday saw a better line-up with Carla Morrison, Minus the Bear, The Naked and Famous and Bastille.
Morrison certainly brought her special brand of Mexican indie-pop to the Maverick Plaza. Morrison was the only pure Spanish act—right at home among the San Antonio Spanish culture, but out of sorts with Maverick’s increasingly indie-alternative vibe.
The Naked and Famous hails from, according to vocalist Alisa Xayalith, “Middle-Earth.” Or rather, New Zealand. T/N/A/F performed “Higher” (off its new album, “Simple Forms”) among “No Way” and other songs. The band closed its set with its most popular song, “Young Blood.”
British indie pop band Bastille was Saturday’s headliner. The band played a good mix of songs from both albums, including nine songs off its second album released in 2016, “Wild World.”
During “Flaws” lead singer Dan Smith promenaded through the crowd and crooned atop the VIP platform (this reporter’s heart admittedly skipped a beat at the singer’s proximity).
Bastille performed hits such as, “Bad Blood,” “Laura Palmer,” “Things We Lost in the Fire” as well as recent singles, “Good Grief,” “Send Them Off” and “Blame.” The band closed the festival with the popular and boomingly infectious “Pompeii.”
Next year, Maverick moves and expands into Hemisfair Park as the official music festival for the San Antonio Tricentennial.
