By Hannah Neff
Historic Trustees Theater’s 1,200 seats were mostly ignored while people danced in the aisles and glow sticks were flying through the air at a steady pace on April 24.
Sound Tribe Sector 9 filled the auditorium with funky jams, dazzling lights, and heavy vibrations.
Savannah undoubtedly has a crowd for this, but the city lacks the space to properly accommodate bands usually found on the lineups of festivals like Electric Forest or Bonnaroo. When students want to catch acts like this they usually travel to Florida or South Carolina.
While there were many students in attendance, STS9 drew an eclectic audience from the surrounding area as well — people from Atlanta, the Carolinas, and Florida.
A few rows back was a man named Jester, a top hat wearing 44-year-old former street performer who has lived in Savannah for years, and though he acknowledged the impressive turnout “for a Wednesday,” he wasn’t confident about artists like STS9 carving a real niche in Savannah’s music scene.
“Savannah is not suited for this,” he said during the band’s intermission. “There’s no place for a lot. These bands are mostly based on a ‘family’ that travels with them. There’s no room for that here.”
STS9’s instrumental experimentation pushed the limit of what Savannah is used to hearing. The group usually plays large music festivals or for crowds exceeding 5,000 when on tour.
While seeing the group in a smaller venue (especially one with seats like Trustees) was an intimate and exciting experience, it did not provide the wild dancing or freedom of movement most expect when seeing Sound Tribe.
“There isn’t enough room to dance!” said Kirsten Welch, a 21-year-old student at Armstrong University. “Savannah has no venue for this sort of thing. It would be cool if Forsyth were used more, but Taco Abajo is the only open space I’ve been to and that’s not nearly big enough for a real concert.”
Savannah has almost everything they need for this type of scene to take root. There’s no question that our city is used to tourists and travelers, and the crowd was incredibly enthusiastic on Wednesday. All they need is more space.
