East Rock Porchfest Prepares for 50+ Bands on September 13th
Samantha Winfield and Vincent Amendola Outside of East Rock Porchfest Sponsor, Atticus Market
Siblings and bandmates of Modern Refuge, Samantha Winfield and Vincent Amendola, did not set out to be event planners. But after playing Black Rock and Milford Porchfests, they wanted to bring the Ithaca-born and nationally-bred community festival to their neighborhood.
That idea, kicked off in January 2024, has exploded into East Rock Porchfest, which will host 54 performers across 24 host locations on Saturday, September 13th, between 11am and 6pm.
The Lawrence Street Plaza will also host bands at their State and Lawrence St. stage, which Brandon Doyle of Goatville Salvage, in collaboration with architecture collective Nail Hole, will be building to look like a porch. The New Haven Flea, run by Lauren Mallet, will also be organizing a Porchfest Flea Market nearby with over nine vendors. Food will be specially prepared for the festival at Atticus Market and P&M. There will be a Saturnalia drag performance from 1pm-2pm at the Porchfest Flea Market.
Many of these local organizations, collectives, and bands organically reached out to Sam and Vincent to collaborate. "We had a good amount of people wanting to get involved," said Amendola. "Once the buzz started, it just kept rolling and we'd get another email from somebody that wanted to collaborate.”
Finding host locations proved to be one of their biggest challenges early on. "We were worried. We were stuck in limbo at ten [hosts] for a while there," Sam remembers. While Sam and Vin were knocking on doors, asking people to volunteer their porches for bands, local interest magnetized to the event with people wanting to help and support. Some neighbors even offered to set up water stations for attendees.
A view of East Rock’s Orange St.
A part of the challenge was also sharing what a Porchfest is with people who may have never been to one before. This year, Oakhurst Porchfest in Georgia was the largest in the country, with 240 hosts and a performer on each porch.
Vincent, who moved to East Rock earlier this year, and has lived in New Haven for the past several years, has always been a part of the local CT scene. He grew up in East Haven, and when his sister Samantha wanted to start Modern Refuge in the creatively-stifling depths of the pandemic, they started building from covers to originals. "Everything was shut down then, and we just had a rehearsal space and we just kind of started jamming," Sam said. Now, they are providing bands a festival experience they enjoy as a band. "It's nice to have a crowd that is excited to hear your music,” said Vin. “And excited to experience your energy as a band."
Modern Refuge is an indie-rock band, but the genres span the gamut at East Rock Porchfest, setting it apart from other local Porchfests like the jam-band-heavy Black Rock or the United Illuminating-sponsored Milford Porchfest. "There's a lot of punk — very important in New Haven, which I love," Sam notes about the festival lineup. The East Rock event will showcase local punk acts like Trouble Girl and Shame Penguin, rock bands including Kinickey Hickey and The Tines, and crunchy East Rock favorites like Oliver Egger and Old Milk Mooney. There will also be experimental outfits like Fuselaje and TerronTheLight. The festival will feature several bands making their debut performances and comeback shows, including Saint James who will return to the stage on the 13th. You can even catch this author playing drums in Mommy Bahama at 11am on Avon St.
As first-time event organizers, Sam and Vincent have been "riding by the seat of our pants.” "We are definitely learning as we go,” said Vincent, who does not do this sort of work as his day job. “We're tapping into all of our resources and talking to people, but we’re just trusting that it's gonna work out." Despite the learning curve, they've managed to accommodate every band that wanted to participate.
Yesterday, East Rock Porchfest announced an interactive digital map with band bios, set times, YouTube videos, plus genre filtering. Created by Matt Smith on behalf of Park City Presents, who also creates maps for Milford and Black Rock Porchfests, the tool allows festival-goers to click on porch locations and filter by musical style. Hand-drawn maps by the same artist who created the official poster, Hayden Gaillard, will also be available at sponsor locations.
No roads will be closed off except for the Lawrence Street Plaza section, but people are encouraged to walk, bike, skate, and stroll to the participating porches across the neighborhood's ten-block radius. "Don't worry about rushing around," Sam suggests to attendees. "Talk to your community. Meet people. Meet musicians."
