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More often than not the headliners’ slots are beyond mobbed, and the smaller acts haven’t figured out how to command a big festival stage. Even worse, plenty of out-of-town bands end up playing their one tour date in Chicago in front of thousands of indifferent onlookers interested mostly in defending their patch of dirt so they can catch the next, bigger act–and many of these bands have to sign noncompete agreements that preclude more intimate shows elsewhere in town for a big chunk of the rest of the year. Unfortunately, festivals that should be opportunities for music fans of all stripes to party together end up as grueling exercises in feeding the hype machine and keeping up appearances.
Ears & Eyes features 21 bands spread across three nights (each show is $12), plus a prefestival party on Thursday at a secret location–to get invited to that one, you have to buy a three-day pass for $30. This is the fest’s third year, and it’s grown considerably since bassist Matthew Golombisky founded it in 2006 as a one-day party at Sylvie’s, thrown together to raise money to pay off an open-container citation received by one of his friends, who was on tour from the more public-drinking-friendly New Orleans. Golombisky, a Katrina refugee turned Chicagoan, had so much fun that he decided to make Ears & Eyes a yearly event. Since then the festival has moved from the comfy (if scuzzy) confines of Sylvie’s to Subterranean and now the Hideout. The festival has also spawned a record label of the same name, which has released music by several of Golombisky’s projects and by a few of the bands that were part of the scene centered around the defunct Ice Factory.
