Doe Bay Resort hosts a magical festival

I recently attended my second Doe Bay Fest in as many years and it was just as special and magical of a feeling this time as my first. “Magical” isn’t a word I often use, especially not when describing a music festival. Most of them have gotten too big and the crowds often have a handful of people who have had way too much to drink. Doe Bay Fest doesn’t have that problem.

You see, Doe Bay Fest can’t get any bigger; 1,200 people is about as big as they can get and when the only way to get tickets is to go stay at the resort earlier in the year, you tend to only have die-hard music fans who really want to be there. These tickets sell out months before the lineup is even announced because the Doe Bay faithful trust Artist Home Booking to put together the perfect lineup each year, and they do.

The first day of the 2013 Doe Bay Fest quickly became the Fly Moon Royalty show. The crowd swarmed to see Adra Boo and Action Jackson as they were joined on stage by a three fantastic backup dancers and eventually some of the younger audience members joined them as well for a cover of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back.”

Day two’s headliner was Built To Spill who closed out their set by bringing out the guitarists from fellow Doe Bay bands Smokey Brights, The Grizzled Mighty, Radiation City and others to play along with the encore.

There were several bands on the lineup I was not familiar with and they were all great. Two bands really stood out to me: You, Me and Apollo from Fort Collins, CO and Quinn Deveaux and the Blue Beat Review from Oakland, CA. After these two bands performed they were all anybody at the festival could talk about.

Check out a video of Quinn Deveaux and the Blue Beat Review performing on the main stage (above) and a video of You, Me and Apollo performing a late night acoustic beach show at the Two Bar tent (below). If you ever have the chance to see either of these bands live, be sure to take advantage. You won’t be disappointed.