Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers will be headliners when they play at HoCo Fest for the first time. “We may turn up the heat a little bit, play a longer set,” Roger Clyne said.
Hotel Congress is hosting what promises to be Tucson’s biggest Labor Day celebration this weekend — four days of live music and food that has become an end-of-summer tradition.
This year’s HoCo Fest — the 10th annual — will feature Tucson’s favorite son, Roger Clyne, and his band The Peacemakers as headliners, supported by English Space Rock pioneers Hawkwind with former member Nik Turner back in the fold. Local artists in the lineup include the hugely popular Latin band Sergio Mendoza Y La Orkestra and desert rockers Rich Hopkins and The Luminarios.
“It seems like yesterday we started this thing,” said Hotel Congress entertainment coordinator David Slutes, who launched HoCo Fest in 2005 to celebrate Club Congress’s 20th anniversary.
Back then, the three-night event was designed as a reunion — bring together dozens of Tucson bands whose paths crossed at Club Congress.
“It was a smash success. Everyone had such a great time,” Slutes said. “It was like a high school reunion of the damned. It was crazy. It was really great.”
The event was such a success Slutes decided to make it annual, infusing a bit of a reunion aspect to each event and including a Latin night and a free night to each festival.
“What it represented was what I believed Congress was, this arts and music hub of the community,” Slutes said. “I thought what would be really great is to take the last 20 years and bring back all these acts that had made us and the community great musically. That’s what we were really celebrating.”
Every year, it grew — by number of days and acts and by the cache of the acts. In 2013, the event went from strictly local artists to big names. Howard Jones and Men Without Hats headlined that year.
This year, HoCo Fest is ditching the reunion theme and hosting two big stages. On Friday night, Phoenix-based Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers are headlining. If past Clyne shows are any barometer, you might want to get your tickets soon. The Tucson-born indie rocker consistently sells out whenever he plays in Tucson, most often across the street from Hotel Congress at the Rialto Theatre.
Clyne has never played HoCo Fest, but he has done a handful of shows over his 20-year career at Club Congress. Two months ago, he pulled his tequila crawl into the Hotel Congress parking lot and was greeted by 800 fans, he said.
“When we turned the corner, I heard the shout of the crowd and I was really astonished how many people were there. Wow,” said Clyne, who spent that day popping into various Tucson restaurants and bars to promote his Mexican Moonshine tequila line.
“I had been strumming and drinking all day and I never felt so much pressure. I was just thinking I would strum for 30, 45 minutes for 20, 30 people (at Congress). Don’t get me wrong, it was really great. I just kind of had to re-energize myself, re-plan what my strategy was going to be.”
Clyne promised that his band’s HoCo Fest show will “add some high quality, frenetic rock and roll to what is probably already going to be excellent delirium.”
“We may turn up the heat a little bit, play a longer set,” he said. “Make it just a touch more incendiary than normal. Tucson has a special feel for me and I always put forth an extra effort that I didn’t know I had. I usually start with some song that has the word ‘Tucson’ in it, i.e. ‘Americana’ or ‘Preacher’s Daughter.’ It’s just fun. I go in and I swing for the boards.”
Don’t be surprised if Clyne also wanders across the street to spend some time at Tucson’s pop-up beach in the MLK Lot. The beach, with sand volleyball courts, a faux grass lawn and beach chairs and umbrellas, has been up since late July and will come down for the season after this weekend.
“I am a sucker for a beach, faux or otherwise. I will be there,” said Clyne, who hosts his annual Circus Mexicus music festival on the beach in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico, every June.
