When a venue isn’t asking the public to pay for a ticket, it can take a few chances.
That’s the guiding spirit behind what’s becoming an annual tradition, Lebanon Opera House’s Nexus Festival, three days of music and arts that starts on Friday.
“The benefit of a free festival is that you’re not reliant on ticket sales,” Joe Clifford, the opera house’s executive director, said in an interview. “These are artists who should be in the Upper Valley,” but might not drive ticket sales if they played the opera house for a standalone show. The festival lets music fans take a flyer.
“I think that’s part of the fun,” Clifford said.
The standout this year is the soul, rock and blues singer Bette Smith, who plays at 8 Friday evening on the main stage behind the opera house.
“There’s something about her that just screams ‘rock star,’ ” Clifford said. She was the toughest artist to sign, Clifford said. For Nexus he targets a sweet spot: musicians or acts who are on the rise, but not yet famous.
There’s also room for local acts. Western Terrestrials, the country-western band from outer space fronted by former Democratic political consultant Nick Charyk, of Sharon, performs at 6:45 Friday evening on the Colburn Park stage.
And on Sunday, the Upper Valley alt-rock band Shy Husky plays the Colburn Park stage at 6:45.
Though they’ve been playing music together since 2015, Shy Husky has lived up to its name, lining up relatively few gigs, said bassist Jeff Meyer-Lorentson, of Lebanon. COVID-19 didn’t help.
“Before the pandemic, we were probably doing two or three shows a year,” said Meyer-Lorentson, 29.
Meyer-Lorentson got together with Leo Charuhas, guitar; Spencer Bladyka, guitar and lead vocals; and drummer Hayden Dow not long after he moved to the Upper Valley from the Burlington area in 2015.
They take ownership of a wide range of musical influences, but have molded themselves into a unit that fits the alt- or indie-rock label, playing songs that are melodic, but also hard-edged.
Their Nexus set will consist almost entirely of original material. Bladyka and Charuhas bring their songwriting ideas to the group and they work on them as a unit, Meyer-Lorentson said.
When Shy Husky started playing live shows again last year, they ran into a familiar issue: there aren’t many local venues that suit their sound and preferred volume. They do well in outdoor venues or big spaces, playing Melody Mountain, in Warren, N.H., last summer, and at the Windsor Exchange two weekends ago.
“We’re not quite the right fit for Salt hill,” Meyer-Lorentson said.
In addition to searching for venues, the band also plans to get into a studio soon. “We have some material that we’re really happy with,” Meyer-Lorentson said.
Like most Upper Valley bands, they’re trying to take their music as far as they can while maintaining their day jobs.
“We’re really excited for the show this weekend,” Meyer-Lorentson said.
Their set nestles in a Sunday program that’s heavy on rock, including Jocelyn and Chris, a sister-brother rock duo from upstate New York, and Fast Times, an ’80s tribute band.
Overall, though, the Nexus Fest is hard to pin down, and that’s by design. The HillBenders will bring their WhoGrass project to the festival on Friday — that’s right, a bluegrass band playing The Who’s classics. Singer-songwriter Senie Hunt, performing Saturday, hails from Sierra Leone.
The entire Saturday lineup consists of global sounds, from the all-female pan-South-American band LADAMA, to Battle of Santiago, which mixes Afro-Cuban music with Toronto post-rock.
Clifford is particularly excited about Sewam American Indian Dance, a troupe that he had lined up to perform at the opera house in 2020 before the pandemic scotched it. The group of dancers will perform on Saturday, but will be in residence at the festival, holding workshops on Saturday and Sunday.
This year’s festival includes a busker’s stage on the Lebanon Mall, in addition to the two performance stages, one in Colburn Park and the other behind the opera house. And there will be other art activities organized by AVA Gallery and Art Center.
The festival’s roughly $70,000 budget is paid for through grants, sponsorships and donations, Clifford said. The best way to check it out is just to show up and listen, he said.
“Just take a little musical journey, you know?”
For a full listing of performances, go to lebanonoperahouse.org.
Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or 603-727-3207.
