festival review: Pickathon in Happy Valley, OR
Concert Goers enjoy a performance by Mike and the Moonpies.
Last Friday marked Pickathon’s big return as one of the Pacific Northwest’s biggest music festivals, nestled in Happy Valley, just outside of Portland, Oregon. After taking a multiple-year-long break due to the pandemic, the folk-jazz-country-alternative-experimental-every other genre you could imagine-festival made a huge comeback just in time for the 2022 festival season, bringing names such as Goth Babe, Sons Of Kemet, Faye Webster, and Hurray for the Riff Raff to beautiful Oregon.
I spent the beginning of my day one wandering between the fruit stand selling the most delicious fruit I’ve had in my life (Seriously could not stop buying fruit from them. It was so good. Trust me.) and various midday sets such as Michael Rault, Rachel Baiman, and Mike and the Moonpies.
As the morning turned into afternoon, I headed over to the newly renovated Galaxy Barn stage, excited to see alternative band Automatic who absolutely killed their set with a fresh energy I hadn’t seen before, resulting in a certainly memorable show. Next up was a Deeper set at the Grove Stage, and let me tell you I fell in love with their music from the moment that band stepped foot on stage. The four-piece didn’t let a moment go boring, filling every second of their set with music that I (and everyone else around me) couldn’t not get enough of (and thankfully they played a second set on Sunday that I had the pleasure of capturing). Not long after that I made a quick run back to the Galaxy Barn in order to see Sweeping Promises, a trio that I’ve actually been trying to see for a few years now to no avail (until last weekend, obviously!).
As the sun set and night fell upon us, I had just enough time to do some people watching between remaining sets, observing a rather exuberant dance party at one point right before running to shoot headliner Wet Leg’s set. Enjoy some photos from the remainder of Friday night!
