2017 Basilica Block Party
July 7-8, 2017 Cities 97 - Basilica Block Party - Minneapolis, Minnesota
Every year, since 1995, the Basilica of Saint Mary church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, throws an enormous fundraiser to help pay for the structural restoration of the building in the form of a massive music festival. It is fun. It is loud. It is full of thousands of people. It is normally hot. It is a blast!!!!
For the past two years, I’ve been one of the handful of photographers who get to photograph the event, but this year we got an all access pass. So this time we were able to go anywhere! It’s a ton of work, but so worth it! This year I forgot to count how many steps I took, but if I had to guess, it would add up to at least a few miles. Good thing, because I ate two baskets of cheese curds. They were wonderful.
Not only is there wonderful food there, there is amazing beer, multiple vendor booths and some of the best people watching ever. No, I haven’t forgotten about the fantastic musical performers. This year, the 18 band line up had a couple of my all time favorite musicians, Brandi Carlile and AWOLNATION. I was so excited!!!
Here is a bunch of my favorite moments and shots from the two-day festival. I had a hard time narrowing down the files, so you get to view a bunch more than probably necessary. Oh well. It’s one of my faults. I can’t delete as many images as I probably should, or narrow down to smaller amounts to get my story across. Enjoy!
Andrew McMahon and The Wilderness! Such a great performer. The crowd loved him! He even stepped over my head at one point and you can see me in his sunglasses. So cool!
Cities 97 co-hosts, Keri and Greg, introduced Brandi Carlile on stage. I was so pumped to photograph her! Also, the one carrying all the beverages, that’s Meghan. She’s the boss of the show. See, even the top dogs work hard at this event!
I love taking night time shots when there is a lot of colorful lights. Speaking of colorful lights, the party had something interesting. It was called the Silent Disco party. Everyone under the tent wore headphones that connected to the dj’s music. If you didn’t have on head phones, all you could hear was the people singing along. Really unquie idea!
Day two of the festival was equally as awesome as day one! If I had to guess, there were more people this day. The weather was absolutely perfect this day! I was also able to bring along my hubby to photograph with me. It’s fun having him with me! Not only is it like a sorta-date, (any parent who gets to leave the house, whether it’s to Home Depot or a movie, with their hubby sans kids will probably understand that term) he’s a foot taller than me and can get some really cool shots!
Walk the Moon back stage.
Gavin DeGraw and Ben Rector. They both killed it on stage!
Of course, we have to take a selfie with the crowd. We are in the pit in front of the stage with all the other media folk waiting for the next band to start.
AWOLNATION!!!! I’ve been obsessed with the band for years. Love that I was able to take a few photos of their amazing performance.
After the sun went down, we stayed put on a balcony stage that overlooked the whole crowd. It was the perfect spot not to be trampled, and have the ability to take crowd shots.
Check out The Basilica Block Party website for updates and photos from this year’s party, and keep tabs on what’s happening next year!
