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| Where will the Big Wu be playing next? |
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[9/17/2010]
Ames, IA
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[9/18/2010]
Franklin, MN
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[10/30/2010]
Aberdeen, SD
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[10/31/2010]
Fargo, ND
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[11/25/2010]
Minneapolis, MN
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| Extra! Extra! Read all about the Big Wu's recent appearances. |
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[7/11/2009]
Geneva, MN
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[7/10/2009]
Geneva, MN
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[7/3/2009]
Minneapolis, MN
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[6/18/2009]
Minneapolis, MN
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[5/23/2009]
Geneva, MN
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Whenever the Big Wu is in the news, we try to track it down and post it here. However, this doesn't happen without help! If you know of an article we're missing, please let us know by sending us a note.
The 9th Annual Big Wu Family Reunion - May 26-28 - Geneva, MN
8/16/2006
Read Article
Author: Clara Rose Thornton
Author: Homegrown Music Network
It’s both heartwarming and refreshing to watch a relative “little guy” triumph, time and again.
Festivals have been a summer stalwart since the mid-90s, steadily growing in size, number, popularity and media attention in the decade since. Now the largest and most advertised of such events – 10,000 Lakes, Wakarusa and Bonnaroo - get consistent mainstream media nods. Some consider this a good thing while detractors claim it’s actually fandangling our scene from underneath our feet. For instance, Bonnaroo – a mere four years young – has already taken a sizable percentage of its acts from the hip hop and mainstream radio rock genres and Rolling Stone now reports on its ticket sales months in advance. Though Bonnaroo is still great fun, how long can that last when it’s a hot topic on the likes of an NBC-sponsored blog called “The Pop Culturephile,” written by a woman resembling a middle-aged housewife who also writes about how “gorgeous” Britney Spears looked in her pregnancy photos?
Whether you’re a purist fearful of such hostile takeover or just a music fan ever-seeking his/her fix in a noncommercial environment, there’s good news in the form of the Big Wu Family Reunion, one of the very first festivals of the realm, now in it’s ninth year. Media-blitz be damned; these folks are persevering just fine tucked away in the Southern Minnesota woods.
Big Wu lead singer and bassist Andy Miller shared his thoughts with me about his band’s annual campout and the current state of the scene on its last night, in a lengthy interview ending moments before he took the stage for a performance of epic proportions.
In explaining the Reunion’s origins, he said, “We were working on our second album, Folktales, and there’s a song called ‘Shantytown.’ We wanted a chorus of people – a big round of people – to sing ‘Shantytown’s’ refrain over and over and over, to fade out at the end of the album. At the time we were practicing in this huge warehouse that’s part of a factory [Latch Lake Studios in Eagan, MN]. The owner happened to have a huge stage and a big PA. So we made it a private party. I needed 400 people to sing this line over and over, and it just seemed like the best way: get ‘em somewhere and feed ‘em beer. If you need a crowd to do something, you’ve got to give them beer. We did it right. People bought their invitation for $10. On the invitation was the secret location of the place. And we thought, ‘While we’re doing it, why not play a big show?’ We played a couple sets, we had some friends come – a couple other bands. We titled it Family Reunion just to give it a title, and that was the first one. It was at a warehouse for just one night. Then the second year we brought it down to Harmony Park and made it a three-day festival. That’s how it evolved; it was just an idea that we needed people to do something. It’s an idea that got out of hand.”
You can’t get much more grassroots than that. The Family Reunion blossomed into a 5,000-fan yearly attendance and has introduced such then-unknown bands to the world as Yonder Mountain String Band, Disco Biscuits and All Mighty Senators. This year’s lineup included the Senators, North Mississippi Allstars, Oteil and the Peacemakers, New Monsoon, Tea Leaf Green, Pnuma Trio, Papa Mali, Cornmeal, Mr. Blotto and several others. The festival has maintained an intimate, nurturing atmosphere geared toward attention to individual patrons in an unspoiled, pastoral lakeside setting. A longtime Big Wu fan, it was so appealing to me that I made the 531-mile, 10.5-hour Greyhound trek from Chicago (including layovers) into Albert Lea, MN, and then – backpack and cooler in tow – took a cab the rest of the way to Geneva.
That’s the kind of travel tale usually reserved for the major leaguers: folks riding their bikes for days to get to Phish’s first fest, The Great Went, or hitchhiking through national forests to the Rainbow Gathering. But the Reunion’s “welcome home” spirit has given it a reputation
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