First annual Tybee Post Theater Music Festival takes Indigo Girls to the beach

Atlanta’s Grammy Award-winning folk rock duo Indigo Girls are headlining the first annual Tybee Post Theater Music Festival. The already sold out festival promises to be an exciting community event that will not only raise funds for Tybee Post Theater, but ensure that they can continue to entertain Tybee Island and the Savanah area in the coming year.

Tybee Post Theater can only seat 210 people, so the festival is taking it outside to the grounds in front of Hotel Tybee in a call-back to past beach festivals.

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“I wanted to see how we can expand our reach beyond the four walls we have,” said Tybee Post Theater Executive Director Evan Goetz. “How can we get out in the community? How can we do more on a larger scale and bring in more people?”

“We really wanted to have some recognizable names and to put some importance and weight on the festival. Back in the day Tybee used to do a beach music festival and wanted to resurrect that feeling of coming together as a community and having a great day out on the beach.”

Besides Indigo Girls (which would have been a big enough draw in itself) the festival is featuring two stages with performances by an eclectic mix of popular and local artists covering every genre from reggae to surf rock to Americana.

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“That was a reflection of what we do at the theater,” explained Goetz. “We were very intentional about having a wide variety. We didn’t want to pigeon hole into a specific genre that we would have to replicate every year. We wanted to celebrate all genres of music.”

The festivities kick off at noon with Savannah surf rockers The Aloha Joes who always make every show a party. Next on the bill are The Tams, a vocal group from Atlanta who have been performing for over 50 years in one iteration or another.

Alice & Evan are a Savannah bluegrass duo featuring fiddle player Alice Gould and guitarist Evan Rose of Swamptooth. Music of Motown is a tribute show put on by New York City’s East Coast Tributes who got Tybee Post Theater dancing last year, and are returning to fire up the crowd again.

“The energy of that band was so fantastic,” said Goetz. “People got up on their feet from the very first song and didn’t stop for two hours.”

For those who can’t make it to Tybee Post Theater Music Fest on Saturday, East Coast Tributes will be performing at Tybee Post Theater the evening before with their I Want My MTV: 80s & 90s Tribute. Tickets are still available for that one.

Led by Victor and Becky Solis, Keystone Postcard have been awarded numerous Best of Savannah Awards, including Best Rock Band, for their eclectic blend of 80s and 90s covers. They’ve described themselves as sounding like if “Pat Benatar and Slash joined the Goo Goo Dolls.”

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Next, Savannah’s ever popular progressive reggae rock band Passafire bring good vibes to the main stage. Singer-songwriter Christy Snow and her band will follow up on the locals stage.

Cordovas hail from Nashville, Tennessee and play 60s and 70s style country rock in the vein of Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers, and The Band.

Bayou Cafe, Latin Chicks, and Naked Dog food trucks will be on site and beach chairs will be available for rent.

Tybee Post Theater is also making sure the festival is eco-friendly by working with Fight Dirty Tybee to ensure that the beach stays clean, and trying to eliminate single-use plastic items.

Based on tickets sales, Goetz expects an attendance of 800 people. Thanks the success of early ticket sales, Tybee Post Theater has already booked next year’s music festival. And the theater is booked every Friday and Saturday until next June with movies and concerts.

“This serves as a fundraiser for the Tybee Post Theater, so it’s a really big deal and it means a lot to us that people are really excited about it, want to support it and have a good time,” said Goetz.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah GA concerts; Tybee Post Theater Music Festival