Who’s who at the Granite State Music Festival?

<span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>Fiveighthirteen</strong></span>

<span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>Katie Rose</strong></span>

<span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>Richard James and the Name Changers</strong></span>

<span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>Crunchy Western Boys</strong></span></p><p> The Crunchy Western Boys have no problem playing intimate venues. But what is now their signature light-hearted audience banter evolved out of one that was borderline too intimate.<br />“We were playing some room and there were only like four people out there. So I said, ‘Since it’s just the eight of us, we might as well get to know each other,’” Steve McBrian said. “We just took that (approach) and kind of expanded it, and it works. The audience is a huge part of what we do.”<br />Indeed, the Crunchy Western Boys aren’t entirely sure what kind of music they play – a bluegrassy vibe that comes from a pop-rock place has prompted McBrian to refer to it as kindgrass – but they are sure you’ll have a good time at their shows. McBrian employs a humorous no-holds-barred and no-words-minced approach to addressing the audience while the band unleashes their acoustic-only flavor that features a fiddle but doesn’t include any percussion.<br />You certainly aren’t the only one that’s going to have fun at a Crunchy Western Boys show, either. The band members make sure to enjoy themselves, and aren’t afraid to belly up to the bar and rub elbows with the paying customers.<br />“We’re a drinking band with a music problem,” McBrian said.<br />They also aren’t afraid to seek out a new audience. Though most of their gigs are in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, they’ve played in Ireland twice and have visited the Virgin Islands – partly to avoid the frigid snow-based doldrums that can dampen the music scene during a New England winter.<br />“We like to play a lot around here and then go somewhere completely different,” McBrian said. “Around here you pretty much play your Halloween gig and pack your fiddle on moth balls until February or March. We like to get out of dodge.”<br />Ultimately, it’s the band’s insistence on remaining a square peg in a music world of round holes that makes them such a unique experience.<br />“We’d be the first ones to tell you we’re not really a bluegrass band,” McBrian said. “I always tell hardcore purists my favorite (bluegrass pioneer) Bill Monroe quote is, ‘I invented this kind of music because I didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing.’ So why follow in lockstep with what Bill already did: Branch it out, man, have some fun with it.”

<span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>The Fearless Ones</strong></span></p><p>As a former member of ubi-quitous ’90s New Hampshire jam band Percy Hill, Tom Powley has performed in and around Concord many times. “Some of my fondest memories of shows were at Thumbs,” Powley told us – how’s that for a deep cut?! Now, Powley is coming back to Concord as the frontman of the Fearless Ones. He’s excited to bring some organic sounds to the Granite State Music Festival – the Fearless Ones certainly aren’t scared to jam – but he notes that there is a different music festival landscape nowadays compared to the halcyon days when he got his start.