Home Music JamBase Announces 20th Anniversary Concert

JamBase Announces 20th Anniversary Concert

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This year, JamBase will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a special show featuring The Camp Harry All-Stars, Big Light and Ron Artis II & The Truth. The concert takes place at The Chapel in San Francisco on June 1. Buy tickets here.

We’re excited not only to host this concert featuring some of JamBase’s favorite musicians from the past two decades, but to also share throughout the year specially prepared retrospectives on the last 20 years of going to see live music. Stay tuned for more JB20 features and celebratory content throughout 2019.

The JamBase 20 concert lineup was chosen to reflect the past, present and future of live music with a trio of acts, each one uniquely special to JamBase. You’ll have to come out to The Chapel on June 1 to see who we selected to form The Camp Harry All-Stars, which will feature surprise guests from many of our favorite bands.

Here’s Fred Torphy of Big Light explaining the band’s history with JamBase:

Big Light and JamBase go way back. Three of our band members (myself included) held jobs at the old Zoe street office in San Francisco in the early days. But our history with JB goes much, much deeper. The band was essentially formed at Camp Harry – the unofficial JamBase camp at High Sierra Music Festival, where we got our start playing late-night renegade sets alongside our friends Surprise Me Mr. Davis. That relationship eventually led to our first tour – a run of shows with Davis that kicked off after our first “official” appearance at HSMF in 2008, and brought us to Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles for the first time. Over the next several years we worked our way up to the HSMF main stage, but we always returned to Camp Harry – our community’s epicenter – until going on hiatus in 2013.

After the band decided to reform in 2015, Camp Harry was the obvious choice of venue for the reunion. We’ve been insanely lucky to have had the support of the JamBase family for our entire career, and I can honestly say there would be no Big Light without JamBase. It’s such an honor to be participating in the JB 20th anniversary. We look forward to playing for and with old friends, and acknowledging and celebrating the impact JamBase has had on our lives. Go see it!

Big Light & Nathan Moore – Live At JamBase

Here’s JamBase CEO David Onigman describing the genesis of our relationship with Ron Artis II & The Truth:

Back in 2016 we were up at the 4 Peaks Festival in Bend, Oregon shooting a batch of videos (moe., Poor Man’s Whiskey, Moonalice) for our Terrapin Station montage video. While we were there, we were on the lookout for other artists to shoot some videos with. I hadn’t seen the set, but a friend of ours came back raving about Ron Artis II & The Truth and that we just had to get them to sit for a session. We did the following day, and being unfamiliar with them, myself and Jake Alexander (our video producer) were blown away by their musicianship as these two brothers (Ron and Stevon) played three beautiful acoustic tunes.

While wrapping up, it was only then that I learned that this wasn’t even the band, that there’s an electric portion to this ensemble. Later that day we had our heads kicked in by the full electric Ron Artis II & The Truth. On that same trip we were able to introduce Ron to San Francisco’s renowned Dan “Lebo” Lebowitz, and Lebo invited Ron up for a rousing rendition of “All Along The Watchtower” at Lebo’s late-night jam. We are ecstatic to have Ron and his band on-board for what will surely be an incredible night of music. Don’t take my word for it, when Ron sat-in with Buddy Guy this past week, Guy quipped, “Now that’s the real thing.”

Ron Artis II & Stevon Artis – Yakima Pop-Up Stage

Purchase tickets here to go see live music on June 1 at the JamBase 20th Anniversary concert at The Chapel in San Francisco.