Welcome to theStompers.com - OFFICIAL website of Boston rockers....the Stompers!

There Were Music, Energy and Fun in N.H.

The Boston Globe - July 18,1983
By Steve Morse

GILFORD, N.H. -- It was a daring idea. Gather a bunch of Boston rock acts, sprinkle in some reggae, country-blues and steel drum bands and top them off with consciousness-raising exhibits on solar energy and homespun crafts.
This was the format of Saturdays opening day of the third annual Great Northeast Arts & Energy Festival, held this year for the first time on breathtaking Gunstock Mountain in the back woods of Gilford, N.H.
Attendance was an undersized 5000 -- blamed in part on hot, sticky weather that sent people to the beach instead of the mountains; and because there was no bona fide headliner among the 12 acts, most of whom were Boston club bands who could be seen for less expense in the city any night of the week.
But for people drawn to music for music’s sake and not for its celebrity value, Saturday was a heavenly feast of good times and lasting memories.
The day took on a hypnotic glow, as fans and families shuffled up and down hills between two large outdoor stages (placed 400 feet apart at 90-degree angles so as not to overlap the sound), or to two beer tents -- one appropriately named Xanadu after the pleasure palace in Samuel Coleridge’s opium-inspired poem “Kubla Khan.”
Because there were so many rock acts on the bill -- from the vintage rockabilly of Sleepy LaBeef to the summertime boogie of The Stompers -- the music was booming over the slanted mountains by day’s end. It was cranked up well beyond the puny decibel ceilings of outdoor shows in Tanglewood and Boston Common, though the crafts salespeople suffered because they were too close to one stage, negating many sales.
History was made because this was the first solar-powered festival in New England. “Solar Genny One,” the generator run by Ty Braswell of the Solar Lobby and Tom Campbell of Pacific Alliance (the group that sponsored the anti-nuke MUSE concerts in New York three years ago) acquitted itself beautifully.
LaBeef got the crowds going in the early afternoon, while other Boston-based rock acts carried it from there. The Reflectors were funkier than usual, the New Models unleashed the star antics of singer Casey Lindstrom, the Pousette-Dart Band was crispy proficient. Robin Lane was her driving exhortatory self (she also leaked word she’s reassembling her old band the Chartbusters by September) and The Stompers were tireless, with singer Sal Baglio still riding high from sitting in with his idols, the Beach Boys, at Mt. Cranmore the previous week.