Once again it was Summerfest in San Jose and even though I live about 50 minutes away now, I had to take in at least one day. Saturday it was. Once there, I had to get around the restriction of no backpacks. That meant that I had to go with a fanny pack/shoulder sling and my camera slung over my shoulder. A bit of a pain, but I made it work.
The first group I took in, Isaiah Collier and the Chosen Few, was in the Hammer Theater, a venue with no real bad seats. It was a great start to the day.
A big chunk of my day was spent near 200 Park street, which gave me good access to the stage. As a bonus, there was a lot of space for crowd interaction to happen. Barely Funktional was highly entertaining and very engaging. There appeared to be a lot of family and friends in the crowd, which I think made the group that much more energized and caused them to work harder to impress those in attendance.
So many great shots came out of this set that it was really tough for me to winnow them down. As a result, you are treated to even more pics than normal without the encumbrance of words. Enjoy :-)
Cimafunk (another great name) appeared on the main stage, which drew many colorful characters, including myself ;-).
The SJ Jazz Boom Box stage was in a funky (that word again) spot, just off of First street, across from the California Theater in a location that was at one time just a parking lot. There is now a weird boxy pyramid-like structure with some curvy raised parts on the periphery. It’s closed off by fencing most of the time, but they opened it up for this event and I’m hopeful that it will see more life in the near future. There just aren’t that many interesting spaces in SJ. The few that are there should be more fully utilized.
Getting there early and plunking down your lawn chairs in a strategic spot is the veteran move at Summerfest. Some folks even bring collapsible wagons stuffed with coolers, chairs, cushions, and I don’t know what else. You’d think they’d have more restrictions on what’s permissible for entry, but so long as people have bought a ticket, and it’s not a back pack, almost anything goes. It’s all good so long as it gets by the metal detector.
Most of the groups that I saw I had never heard of before. Either I don’t get out much or they are just not that well known. I think it’s the latter. B DeVeux was one of those. According to the program she’s locally grown, practically my neighbor, being from Oakland. Someone that I’ll have to hunt down in the future since she was worthy of spending quality festival listening time with.
The Boom Box stage was the scene for the final performance that I took in. I have no idea who the performers were, but, regardless, it was a nice to be entertained by them while I wound the day down.
© 2026 Carl Fisher