The Werk Out Hosts Stellar Artists, Guest Sit-Ins, & Collaborations At Legend Valley [Videos/Photos]

At the beginning of August, The Werks‘ annual summer music festival, The Werk Out, returned to Thornville, Ohio’s Legend Valley. Spanning from August 2nd through 4th, the ninth-annual festival curated one of the best lineups of the summer, with multiple sets from The Werks, Umphrey’s McGee, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, and Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, plus one-off performances from Lettuce, Twiddle, Papadosio, Turkuaz, The Marcus King Band, Knower, Zach Deputy, Ghost Light, Mungion, Ekoostic Hookah, Spafford, Octave Cat, Rumpke Mountain Boys, and more.

With so many high-profile artists on hand, the festival set itself up to host a number of special collaborations. As The Werks drummer Rob Chafin told Live For Live Music ahead of The Werk Out, “We always aim to book bands that are our friends, that we are always touring with, or that we have befriended along the way. It’s good to have some friends who are doing really well across the board here. We’re really stoked for this year, because I feel like it was the perfect storm to get a lot of our friends in one place.”

Clearly, The Werk Out 2018 was the perfect storm for musical collaboration. In addition to guest sit-ins during the more standard band performances—including Twiddle inviting Pigeon Playing Ping Pong’s Greg Ormont out to lead the vocals on “I’m Gonna Be”—the festival also handpicked a number of special collaborative sets. Twerkapod, a supergroup that features members of The Werks, Twiddle, and Dopapod, offered a special tribute to the music of the ’90s, while the festival’s “Werk Out Superjam” saw numerous musicians on the bill coming together for an exploratory set.

You can check out a selection of videos from The Werk Out 2018 below. At the bottom of the article, you can also check out an extensive gallery of photos, courtesy of Doug Siegel.

Twiddle w/ Pigeons Playing Ping Pong’s Greg Ormont – “I’m Gonna Be”