Jennifer Goldberg
Audio By Carbonatix
Innings Festival 2022 is in the books, and it was both a great success and a hell of a good time.
That being said, it’s impossible for everything to go smoothly at a two-day festival involving thousands of attendees, and well over a dozen musical acts.
Here are our picks for the best and the worst of Innings Fest.
Tempe Beach Park was a great choice for hosting Innings Festival.
Jennifer Goldberg
Best: The park
Tempe Beach Park remains a pretty choice destination for festivals: Plenty of cool grass to lay down on; comfortable benches to recline on and watch lights reflect off of the rippling black surface of the lake after dark; long stretches of open space to take leisurely strolls underneath the bridges criss-crossing the walkway between the two stages. It’s a nice enough spot to spend a few hours in and lose yourself in camaraderie and music that it takes (most of) the sting out of the exorbitant event parking fees to get in there. Ashley Naftule
Worst: Wristbands
A pox upon whoever invented the tamper-proof festival wristband. These infernal devices are uncomfortable and practically impossible to remove without a pair of scissors, a blowtorch, or the slathering jaws of a hyena. If you’ve ever wondered how a rabbit feels as a snare trap bites down on its neck, you can get a taste of that experience by tightening your wristband past the point of “snug” to the “your hand will inflate to the size of a clown’s glove thanks to your cut-off circulation” danger zone. AN
The Home Plate video screens were lifesavers for people standing far away.
Jennifer Goldberg
Best: The video screens at Home Plate
Special props are in order for the A/V team filming the bands on the Home Plate stage. The dual video screens flanking the stage provided intimate, close-up footage of the performers with crystal-clear picture quality. It lent a front-row-seat intimacy to the performances to everyone in the audience, even if you were tucked far in the back of the crowd. AN
Worst: Lines, lines, and more lines
One thing we heard over and over again in the crowd was people marveling at how huge the turnout was for this year’s festival. “It’s never been this packed before,” attendees said as they waited to get into the fest. “It wasn’t this crazy last time,” they said as they waited 15 minutes to put in an order for loaded fries. “There’s so many people here,” every person standing near us muttered as we waited in one of several drink lines that stretched around the park like thirsty centipedes. It seemed the only places at Innings that didn’t have lines so long you wish you had brought a Dostoevsky novel with you to pass the time were the port-a-potties. AN
Best: The distance between stages
This one genuinely could have gone either way. Walking across an entire park, baking in the sun alongside several thousand strangers, is never entirely ideal. But spacing the two stages at opposing sides of Tempe Beach Park did have a few noticeable benefits. Like, it was a stellar chance to browse and sample all the fest’s food and baseball-centric amenities. Or how you could actually move between corresponding sets and compete for primo space against some of the slower attendees. And, of course, the issue of sound bleed, a plague at many a festival, was seemingly never an issue for most of the weekend. Plus, we’d reckon almost everyone in attendance got their steps in and then some. Chris Coplan
The Foo Fighters inspired a bunch of silly T-shirts at this weekend’s Innings Festival.
Jim Louvau
Worst: The choice of clothing
As a rule, people tend to approach festival attire in a slightly lackadaisical manner. It’s the only place where you can wear baseball jerseys and flower crowns and actually feel cool. But Innings’ attendees took it to a whole other festival, with a slew of awful, repetitive T-shirts. Like the two women who wore tees declaring, “I love Foos, Booze, and Boys With Tattoos.” Or the countless number of “Grohl-Hawkins ’24” shirts. Even all the Innings Tampa shirts, which popped up infrequently, somehow felt slightly silly and insulting. It’s important for folks to come out to fests and feel as if they can express themselves in the name of joy and fun. But maybe next time consult a loved one before you leave the house. CC
Black Pumas hit the stage right on time.
Neil Schwartz
Best: Punctuality
Concerts aren’t generally known for starting on time. How often have you gotten to a show and discovered you had an additional 30, 60, even 90 minutes to wait? So it was refreshing and even comforting that the schedule posted on the Innings Festival website was the real deal. It helped fans organize their day and prevented anyone from missing a moment of the entertainment. And after standing in one place for almost two hours waiting for Foo Fighters to start, it was a relief when Dave Grohl and company took the stage at exactly the posted time. Jennifer Goldberg
St. Vincent came really close to pronouncing “Tempe” correctly.
Jim Louvau
Worst: The way some artists said ‘Tempe’
We get it: Unless you live here, Tempe can be a tricky city to pronounce. (It’s “Tem-pee,” FYI.) But after Caamp’s Taylor Meier called it “Temp,” and St. Vincent uttered “Tempy,” we’re wondering if more publicists need to have their clients practice city names before every show. We’re not mad, per se; these bands play far too many gigs to get everything city right. But we still reserve the right to poke a little fun as proud Arizonites… er, Arizonans. CC
Tempe Beach Park was packed during the Foo Fighters set at Innings Festival on Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022.
Jim Louvau
Best: A mostly great crowd
If you want to decide if a festival is great or not, turn from the stage and instead face your fellow attendees. In the case of Innings, folks were mostly well-behaved. It’s especially impressive when the whole grounds were tiered differently than your average, similarly-sized fest. Or when the entrance slowed to a veritable crawl on mid-afternoon Saturday. Yet the crowd responded to these “minor” inconveniences by being polite enough, fairly accommodating, and keeping the hijinks in control. The end result felt like a big old family reunion, with emo kids, dancing hippies, baseball dads, and boisterous bros alike all celebrating in the name of community. It makes everything all the more enjoyable when no one litters, steps on your stuff, or stampedes needlessly. CC
The spicy tuna sushi taco from Pokitrition was inventive, delicious, and for not very much food.
Jennifer Goldberg
Worst: Food prices
Complaining about food prices at a music festival is the journalistic equivalent of standup comedians dumping on Chicken McNuggets. Still, it’s worth mentioning when you consider the venue. Innings is meant to be some kind of down-home, family-friendly celebration of the true American pillars of rock music and baseball. So having $15 corn dogs, $11 pizza slices, and $7 lemonade feels a lot less like pure Americana and more like corporate America. (Which makes a tad more sense given that the fest’s organizer, C3 Presents, is an industry powerhouse with fests like Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.) Most people will happily shell out a $20 bill for a bowl of noodles and a small beer, but it’s important to see when the aesthetic promise of these events falls short of their actual amenities and larger effects. Also, the emphasis on corn dogs over more hot dogs just felt like an affront to baseball itself. CC
Best: The children
Wu-Tang was right in a way, and more music festivals should include kids and even wee babies. Are there times when having toddlers around might harsh everyone’s mellow? Sure, and there are plenty of fests that cater exclusively to an adult audience. But getting kids into the arts begins at an early age, and giving families a space at these fests feels like the best way to encourage that deeper connection. At the same time, however, it was clear that the presence of some kiddies had a certain influence on the proceedings, and simply having some highly influential kids around kept in check the baser tendencies of some attendees (read: getting super smashed and then passing out). Regardless, the end result felt like a better way for Innings to deliver on its promise of inclusion and openness. Plus, how could your heart not melt at watching some 4-year-old dance to St. Vincent? CC
Worst: Astroworld jokes
We were in the midst of the crowd, waiting for Foo Fighters to start, when a young man near us collapsed. Most of the people nearby immediately began waving their phone flashlights and calling for medical assistance, but a few would-be comedians decided that it was a good time to start laughing about how this was going to be the start of a second Astroworld incident (you know, the festival tragedy back in November when 10 people died after a fatal crowd surge). Paramedics eventually reached the guy, and he was conscious when they wheeled him away, but joking about a horrible incident involving a festival crowd when you’re in the middle of a festival crowd is a big L in our book. You’re not clever, you’re not edgy, you’re just an asshole. JG
Sunday’s sunset thrilled the Innings Fest crowd.
Jennifer Goldberg
Best: The Sunday sunset
Arizonans are proud of their sunsets, and rightfully so. Saturday’s clear skies didn’t give us much in the way of a twilight photo op, but Sunday’s haze created a stunning backdrop during Matt & Kim’s set at the Right Field Stage. The barricades between the festival area and Tempe Town Lake were packed with concertgoers capturing the riot of color behind them. “This is incredible!” exclaimed a pack of out-of-town fans. We couldn’t agree more. It was the unexpected cherry on top of an outstanding weekend. JG