Mobile music festival draws applause from San Jose neighborhood – The Mercury News

How do you hold a music festival in the COVID-19 era that adheres to Santa Clara County’s public health guidelines while also being fun? Chris Esparza, who owns the event company Giant Creative, might have found the right answer with PorchFest, which filled San Jose’s Naglee Park neighborhood with music last Saturday.

The New Acousitc Collective plays during the Porch Fest in San Jose on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2020. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group) 

Esparza put a spin on the traditional “front porch” festival, where crowds of music lovers rove to different houses presenting bands. Instead of the audience, it was the music that moved — four bands played 25-minute sets on flat bed trucks that traveled through the neighborhood to eight different curbside “stages.”  Some residents wearing masks watched from lawn chairs on their front lawns, others listened from windows inside their houses.

“We found a way to unlock a safe gathering with plenty of space to feature live music and have a little bit of social time together — all wrapped up in a new reality,” said Esparza, who lives in Naglee Park and presented the idea to the Campus Community Association, the neighborhood association.

It wasn’t a simple operation by any means, though. To stay within the rules, bands weren’t allowed to have vocalists, horns or woodwinds — so there were a lot of guitars, drums and keyboards with music leaning toward light jazz. The bands that performed were the Jazz Mechanics, M-Tet, the New Acoustic Collective and the Wally Schnalle Quartet.

Residents and small-business owners sponsored the stages, helping to pay the bands as well as cover costs for the trucks and equipment. More than two dozen volunteers acted as drivers and stage managers, making sure audiences were following the rules. Afterward, neighbors gushed with gratitude in emails about the event, with one writing that it was “so refreshing to hear live music and see my neighbors after being cooped up for five months.”

After this initial success, Esparza said he could envision the Porch Fest spreading to other areas with enough backing and the right plan. “There would have to be a little customization for every neighborhood, and that’s the way it should be,” he said.

THANKS FOR THE MEMORY: We took the family out for an excursion to Alviso Marina County Park recently, and on the drive back I pointed out Vahl’s, the venerable restaurant that has stood watch on El Dorado Street since 1941.

Santa Clara resident Ed Garcia must have been picking up my brain waves because not long after, he emailed me with a memory about Amelia Vahl, the restaurant’s co-founder who famously had a policy of refusing credit cards — it was cash or checks only.

Garcia recalls writing a check after eating there with his wife on one occasion, but he was surprised to discover that weeks and then months went by without the check being cashed.

“Almost a year later, the check cleared. She must have left it in the apron she was wearing,” Garcia mused. Even though Vahl passed away in 2004 at age 98, Garcia says, “I can still see her in her apron waiting on people.”