Lotus hosted this year’s Summerdance at Nelson Ledges Quarry Park in Garrettsville, OH over the weekend. The band played all three nights of the long-running event, with additional performances by Octave Cat, lespecial, Luke the Knife, DIZGO, Tim Palmieri, Mike Greenfield, Yam Yam, BlendMode, 5AM Trio, and Chalk Dinosaur.
The festivities began on Friday with a solo afternoon set by Lotus guitarist Tim Palmieri. This marked the former Kung Fu guitarist’s first Summerdance with Lotus, following the departure of Mike Rempel who left the band following last year’s Summerdance. Octave Cat came next with an early evening set that gave way to a prime-time performance by lespecial. Lotus capped the night off with a longer, two-set headlining performance during which the band debuted the song “Entangled”, from the recently released Bloom & Recede, and a cover of Bicep‘s “Aura”, which was slipped into the jam in “Livingston Storm”. lespecial guitarist Jon Grusauskas joined the band on “Tar Pits” to open the second set.
On Saturday, fans had the chance to mingle with the members of Lotus as they signed autographs at the festival merch booth. Luke the Knife then played the first set of the day, followed by Chalk Dinosaur and 5AM Trio. Yam Yam played an hour set immediately before Lotus’s second two-set performance, which featured another debut, “Desert Blooms”.
“The debut of Desert Blooms was massive with the modular-focused opener from Bloom & Recede building waves of sound and leading into a dance jam to set up a Slow Cookin’ with Jon from Chalk Dinosaur joining on guitar,” the band wrote in a recap of the show. “Second set was a high energy affair with another run on Mildlife‘s “Automatic” with Chuck [Morris]/[Mike] Greenfield switching instruments. The Gilded Age encore was a barn burner (see photo).”
Unfortunately for festivalgoers, it rained all day Sunday, “but the crowd stuck it out enduring some fairly heavy rain and keeping the dance party going,” Lotus said in its recap of the day. Sunday’s programming included a midday DJ set by Lotus drummer Mike Greenfield and performances by Blendmode and DIZGO. Phibber had been scheduled to play as well, but he was absent from the updated schedule Lotus posted Sunday morning.
Lotus wrapped up the weekend with another pair of headlining sets and one last debut, “Pacific Glow”, “expanding on the studio version with a breakbeat, modular jam.” The second set saw the debut cover of Underworld‘s “Cups”, and “the double encore ended with a super rocking version of ‘Age of Inexperience’,” per the band’s recap.
View videos and a gallery of photos from Summerdance 2022, courtesy of photographer Tanner Henson, below.