Skull and Roses Festival 2 Day 2 Recap

Saturday at Skull & Roses Festival 2 brought us the meat of the weekend with non-stop music from 10am until Midnight.  Crowds rolled in early even though the weather report all week showed expected morning rain.  Fortunately the Ventura County Fairground arena, which is 100% dirt, stayed that way and did not turn to the dreaded mud pit many expected if the rain came.

Kicking it off at 10 am on the Wall of Sound Stage was Southern California based, Unkle Monkey bringing a traditional Dead sound.  That would be the last of that for a long time that day as next up on the Pig Pen stage came Punk is Dead, a heavy punk version of Grateful Dead music that certainly got the juices flowing and the crowd moving around.

Continuing with the “something a little different” theme of the day, Ventura locals, Shaky Feelin’ brought the bulk of the early crowd in the arena to their feet with their mix of Grateful Dead, Phish and original music, weaving all three together into a tapestry of dance friendly music.

Garret DeLoian and company of Jerry’s Middle Finger, took us all back to the familiar Jerry Garcia tunes on the Pig Pen Stage during the lunch hour.  The next two bands were more of the Los Angeles based acts.  Grateful Shred hit the main stage followed by Alligator on the Pig Pen Stage, bringing their tribute to the late keyboard player of the Grateful Dead, Ron “Pig Pen” McKernan, on the stage that bore his name.

Next up was a band that is no stranger to anyone, Moonalice.  Roger McNamee, Barry Sless, John Molo, Pete Sears and Jason Crosby took the Wall of Sound stage and brought their infectious version of the Grateful Dead catalogue that many hadn’t touched yet.  The deep cuts, if you will.

One of the biggest surprises of the day was Roosevelt Collier on the Pig Pen Stage featuring special guest, Dan Lebowitz from ALO.  Collier on pedal steel guitar blew away the Saturday afternoon crowd with his sweet licks along side “Lebo”.

After that, main stage doubled up with Circles Around the Sun followed by Stu Allen & Mars Hotel feat. guest guitarist, Nate LaPointe from Cubensis.  Both bands killed it and Mars Hotel gave an all out feast of Grateful Dead music in front of the mock Wall of Sound and killer light show from Jonathan Bond.  The night ended with an hour long set from Shred is Dead on the Pig Pen Stage featuring the guitar work of Marcus Rezak delivering a largely instrumental jam session of Dead tunes.

READ DAY 3 RECAP HERE