It's just fans of local music walking between Yucca Tap Room and Time Out Lounge, the two venues hosting the inaugural Tempe Noise Pop Takeover festival.
For two nights, 28 bands in an assortment of genres will play a free show for charity.
E.P. Bradley, one of the organizers, wanted to put the event on locally after producing similar festivals when he lived in other cities.
"I’m old enough to remember what South by Southwest started as — the idea of just booking a few venues together and putting a bunch of bands from different scenes in the same night, making it so it’s accessible," he says. "People can walk around and find bands they’ve never heard of. The bands can find bands that maybe they’ve heard of but they’ve never gotten to play with because they’re in different scenes, and you use all of that to donate to a charity. So it becomes a triple win."
Bradley began putting the event together in the summer by calling not just bands he's been on bills with (he's a guitarist in Joan of Arkansas, who are playing the festival), but bands he knows by their music or their reputation.
"One of the things that I guess is an advantage is that I’m old enough that I don’t fear rejection, so I cold-called a bunch of people," he says. "The only rule we have is all of them have to be very good live bands. All of these bands are very live battle-tested. And I can guarantee you, all of them put on a really good show."
The path to the festival wasn't without its detours. A third venue that could host underage fans and bands unexpectedly shut down a few weeks ago, and possible replacements recently received a notice from the city of Tempe that businesses hosting live music without the proper permits could be fined.
But for the bands and fans who are old enough to be in a bar, there's plenty to see.
"If you look at the lineup, it’s a lot of disparate scenes. That’s part of the idea. ... It’s a really diverse, really good group. We go everywhere from avant-garde hip-hop to sludge metal to 1920s murder ballads to power pop to Midwest emo," Bradley says.
All of the bands are performing at Tempe Noise Pop Takeover for free; the event is a fundraiser for Homeward Bound, a local nonprofit organization that serves the needs of people experiencing homelessness in the community. Yucca Tap Room and Time Out Lounge are donating part of their proceeds from the event as well.
Bradley says the charitable aspect is the true endeavor of the event.
"One of the things I really want to accomplish with this is making it easy and palatable to be socially engaged. ... The charity is the heart" of the event, he says.
Black Caesar Soul Club are one of the many local bands participating in Tempe Noise Pop Takeover.
Black Caesar Soul Club
The festival organizers aren't releasing specific set times, but the general schedule is:
Friday, Yucca Tap Room, 7 p.m. start
Celleste
Freezing Hands
Wurmfur
Let Alone
Joan of Arkansas
Weekend Lovers
Okinawa Plane Crash
Snailmate
Friday, Time Out Lounge, 7:30 p.m. start
The Maybe Next Years
Dirt Skirt
Schpilt
Female Gaze
Wallace Hound
Saturday, Yucca Tap Room, 7 p.m. start
Gnarwhal Jrz
MF Gloom
Black Caesar Soul Club
Ghost in the Willow
Goodbye Ranger
Blood Feud Family Singers
Comptalo and the Humanaughts
The Woodworks
Saturday, Time Out Lounge, 7 p.m. start
Blue Evening
Hobo Bastard
JJCNV
Redoubt
Serpent in the Rainbow
The Saturn III
Bradley hopes that people will stick around to hear bands they're not familiar with, and go back and forth between the two venues to check out more of what the local music scene has to offer.
"Each of these bands will convert people who’ve never seen them before," he says. "It’s just gonna happen if you give it time and walk around. There’s so many choices, so many things. You’re going to find your new favorite local band."
Tempe Noise Pop Takeover. Friday, Dec. 1: 7 p.m. at Yucca Tap Room, 29 W. Southern Ave., Tempe, and 7:30 p.m. at Time Out Lounge, 3129 S. Mill Ave., Tempe. Saturday, Dec. 2, 7 p.m. at Yucca Tap Room and Time Out Lounge. Free, but donations are appreciated. Visit the festival website for more.
