Live 105’s BFD 2016 festival was held at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountainview, California on Saturday, June 4th – marking the 22nd time that the event has been held. Live 105, “The Bay Area’s Alternative”, had again put together a custom curated line-up of both well known and emerging acts, covering a wide range of musical genres that all fall under the “alternative” banner, boasting 30 artists across four stages. This article features my PART ONE coverage, which focuses on the daytime “Festival Stage” artists and performances from Bad Religion, Wolfmother, The Wombats, Jake Bugg, Broods, The Story So Far, Lucius, Finish Ticket, Never Shout Never, The Strumbellas, Reuben And The Dark, and JR JR.

What: BFD 2016

Festival Stage Artists:

Venue: Shoreline Amphitheatre
Where: Mountainview, California
Promoter: Live 105 & Live Nation
When: June 4, 2016
Seating: Press/Photo Pass

See the PART TWO BFD 2016 feature for photos of the Main Stage artists: The Offspring, Fitz And The Tantrums, Silversun Pickups, The Naked And Famous, and BØRNS.

BFD was all packed into one very full Saturday, kicking off at 10:30 am. Two “Festival Stages” alternated back and forth throughout the day (to mitigate any downtime – it was literally non-stop music) as well as a “Subsonic Tent” and “Soundcheck Local Band Stage”, which ran concurrently. It all lead up to the “Main Stage” acts within the Shoreline Amphitheatre main stage itself, which ran back to back throughout the night, playing to over 22,000 fans.

Because I shot and watched seventeen different artists, it is not practical for me to do my usual in-depth reviews of each. Keeping up with photography coverage of all of the festival acts, I was shooting the first two songs of each set and then crossing over to the front of the adjacent stage to set up for the next artist, so with all of this activity in the Summer heat, I was not in a position to truly take in what each artist brought to the festival. I will therefore share a few short thoughts and some notes about the latest music or news for each artist. Each is listed in the order in which they performed.

JR JR

Members:

Daniel Zott (vocals, symth, guitar, bass)
Joshua Epstein (vocals, guitar, keyboards, saxophone)
Mike Higgins (drums)
Jon Visger (keyboards)
Bryan Pope (multi-instrumentalist)

JR JR are an indie-pop group from Detroit. Though formed in 2010, they’ve already released three EPs and three albums, most recently JR JR last year. You can check out their latest music video for Gone on YouTube here: LINK

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of JR JR performing on stage:

Reuben and the Dark

Members:

Reuben Bullock (guitar, lead vocals)
Shea Alain (guitar, keyboards, vocals)
Kaelen Ohm (guitar, keybaords vocals)
Brock Geiger (drums, vocals)

Reuben and the Dark were formed in 2012 and are from Calgary. Their first album, Funeral Sky, was released in 2014. You can check out their music video for “Heart in Two” on YouTube here: LINK

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of Reuben and the Dark performing on stage:

The Stumbellas

Members:

Simon Ward (vocals, guitar)
David Ritter (vocals, keyboards)
Jon Hembrey (lead guitar)
Izzy Ritchie (violin)
Darryl James (bass)
Jeremy Drury(drums)

The Strumbellas are an indie band from Ontario that have been around since 2008. They’ve already released three studio albums, including this year’s Hope.

Check out their music video for “Spirits” on YouTube here: LINK

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of The Strumbellas performing on stage:

Never Shout Never

Members:

Christofer Drew (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, ukulele)
Hayden Kaiser (drums, backing vocals, guitars)
Taylor MacFee (bass guitar, backing vocals)
Ian Davidson (lead guitar)
Tof Hoglen (keyboards)

Never Shout Never at an indie band from Joplin, Missouri, formed in 2007. They’ve put out nine EPs and five studio albums, most recently Black Cat.

Check out their latest music video, “Red Balloon”, on YouTube here: LINK

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of Never Shout Never performing on stage:

The Finish Ticket

Members:

Brendan Hoye (vocals)
Michael Hoye (bass)
Alex DiDonato (guitar)
Gabe Stein (drums)
Nick Stein (keyboard)
David “Crim” Nguyen (traveling guitar)

The Finish Ticket are relatively local to BFD, coming from Alameda, California. The band has roots from twin brothers Brendan and Michael’s days in high school, and they signed to Elektra in 2014.

They put out self-released albums in 2009 and 2010, with their Tears You Apart album and When Night Becomes Day EP coming via Elektra in 2013 and 2015.

With this BFD appearance, they seemed to be one of the most popular and high energy acts of the day.

You can check out their music video for “Color” on YouTube here: LINK

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of The Finish Ticket performing on stage:

Lucious

Members:

Jess Wolfe (lead vocals, synth)
Holly Laessig (lead vocals, keys)
Dan Molad (drums, vocals)
Peter Lalish (guitar, vocals)
Andrew Burri (guitar, drums, vocals)

Lucious is an indie band from Brooklyn, formed in 2005. They’ve released three albums, most recently this year’s Good Grief.

They were maybe the most visually interesting artists of the festival, with Jess and Holly on lead vocals serving loosely as mirrors for one another as they performed.

Check out their latest, “Gone Insane”, on YouTube: LINK

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of Lucious performing on stage:

The Story So Far

Members:

Parker Cannon (vocals)
Kelen Capener (guitar)
Kevin Geyer (guitar)
William Levy (bass)
Ryan Torf (drums)

Another local band for the show, The Story So Far come from Walnut Creek; a post punk band formed in 2007.

Of their three studio albums, their most recent (eponymous) release was last year.

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of The Story So Far performing on stage:

Broods

Members:

Georgia Nott (vocals, keyboards)
Caleb Nott (keyboards, vox)
Joel Farland (drums)

Broods was definitely my favorite artist of the line-up for this festival… I covered past appearances at the Regency Ballroom in 2015, and two shows in 2014 at The Independent in San Francisco and (the now defunct) Assembly Music Hall in Sacramento. In my 2014 Year in Review feature, I named their “Bridges” my #1 Song of the Year and placed their album and live shows in the Top 10 for those lists as well, so I’m a huge fan of them and their work.

The brother and sister duo from New Zealand are set to release their second album, Conscious, last this month. You can watch the music video for the first single, “Free”, on YouTube here: LINK

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of Broods performing on stage:

Jake Bugg

Jake Bugg is an English singer-songwriter, only 22 years old. As young as he is, I actually covered his appearance at the charity event in London “Crisis Presents…” back in 2013.

As young as he is, he is talented, and will have released three studio albums by the end of this month including his latest, On My One.

“Love, Hope And Misery”, his latest music video, can be found on YouTube here: LINK

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of Jake Bugg performing on stage:

The Wombats

Members:

Matthew Murphy (lead vocals, guitar, keyboards)
Dan Haggis (drums, percussion, guitar, keyboard, backing vocals)
Tord Øverland Knudsen (bass guitar, guitar, keyboard, backing vocals)

The Wombats are an indie band formed in 2003 in Liverpool.

Their newest album, Glitterbug, came out last year.

You can get a sense of their latest via their “Be Your Shadow” music video on YouTube here: LINK

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of The Wombats performing on stage:

Wolfmother

Members:

Andrew Stockdale (vocals, guitar)
Ian Peres (bass, keyboards)
Alex Carapetis (drums)

Wolfmother are from Sydney and formed in 2000. They had one of the heavier sounds in the line-up, characterized as hard rock and heavy metal.

They put on one of the most electric sets of the day and some in the audience were going bonkers even when they came out to set up while The Wombats were still performing on the adjacent stage.

They’ve put out four albums to date, with Victorious having been released this year.

You can check out a sample of their work via their “People Are Awesome” music video on YouTube here: LINK

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of Wolfmother performing on stage:

Bad Religion

Members:

Greg Graffin (lead vocals, piano, synthesizer, acoustic guitar)
Brett Gurewitz (guitar, backing vocals)
Jay Bentley (bass, backing vocals)
Brian Baker (lead guitar, backing vocals)
Mike Dimkich (guitar)
Jamie Miller (drums)

Bad Religion were kind of the elder statesmen of the event, having been around since the late ’70s. One of the most well-known punk rock bands of all time, they don’t need much of an introduction. They’ve released sixteen studio albums as well as live albums and EPs, so there is a ton of work by them out there, and they’ve sold millions of records.

Their last new studio album, True North, came out in 2013. You can check out their music video for the song “True North” on YouTube here: LINK

Click on the image below to open a virtual lightroom of Bad Religion performing on stage:

Be sure to check out PART TWO of my BFD 2016 coverage here: LINK

Jason DeBord