Bands tune up for Powderhorn PorchFest

The sounds of a Cajun band blasted from the front porch as a crowd of hundreds packed the yards and street of a residential Minneapolis neighborhood. That scene took place at a unique music festival held last September.

"People were holding hands and swinging around their neighbors or people who live down the block, who they may never have met, just laughing hysterically," remembered festival co-organizer Niky Duxbury.

On Saturday, 24 bands from Minneapolis and one from St. Paul will again haul banjos, fiddles and amps to the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis and set up on front porches for a festival appropriately called Powderhorn PorchFest.

The music festival takes place on the 3200 and 3300 blocks of 17th Avenue in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis. It's the third year the event has been held, and it keeps growing. This year, bands will play on five porches spread across the two city blocks, both of which will be closed to cars.

Duxbury said the idea came about two years ago when she and co-organizer Aaron Blum were talking about how there were few venues where people could see neighborhood bands for free.

"Why aren't all of our very talented musician friends and singer songwriters playing out more and getting more exposure and getting listened to?" Blum said. "A lot of them were just playing their music online, which is a great forum for exposure, but we wanted to bring it to the community, we wanted to bring it to the street."

They wanted an unpretentious festival that wasn't sequestered in a bar or big commercial venue. South Minneapolis' huge stock of front porches fit the bill.

"There's something traditional and old about gathering on a porch in somebody's yard, and playing music," Duxbury said.

"It's an invitation into somebody's home and space," Blum added.

Bands this year will be playing styles including Cajun, folk, hip-hop, old-timey and cumbia, which organizers said was meant to represent the diversity of the neighborhood.

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Bands tune up for Powderhorn PorchFest