While the Áak’w Rock Festival takes place during the years between Celebration, organizers figure this week is still a sound time for what they’re calling a “Side Stage” event featuring 10 music acts at various downtown venues Friday and Saturday.
Eight of the performers will play a one-hour set each during a “turntable” event starting at noon Friday at the building that houses Amalga Distillery and Alaska Robotics. Appearing as the featured band for the two-day event is the Yup’ik soul band Pamyua, which is scheduled to perform an “unplugged” show at the distillery on Friday night and a “plugged-in” concert Saturday at Tracy’s Crab Shack 2.
The “Side Stage” event, similar to one that occurred during the final four days of Celebration in 2022, is a fundraiser for next year’s Áak’w Rock, said Taylor Vidic, production director for the event. Áak’w Rock, promoted as the only Indigenous music festival in the United States, debuted as a virtual event in 2021 due to the pandemic before staging its first full-scale three-day event last September.
“This is a much smaller, but still really wonderful event than the full Áak’w Rock,” Vidic said. “It’s featuring more Alaska-based artists in smaller venues.”
Most of the artists are part of the turntable event where shows will rotate between Amalga’s tasting room, the distillery’s backroom and Alaska Robotics.
“Every hour there will be a different artist in each room and that’s why we’re calling it a turntable as you make your way through the building,” Vidic said.
Among the performers are AirJazz, a Juneau Tlingit hip-hop artist; Nicole Church, a Tlingit singer/songwriter from Angoon; Sunny Porch, a duo of Juneau residents Melanie Taikupa Brown and Marcus Beckmann; and Anchorage “two-spirit” musician Witty Youngman.
Also coming from outside Juneau are Dara Rilatos, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians on the Rogue River in Oregon, and Torah Zamora, who performed at this year’s Alaska Folk Festival and is among the One People Canoe Society paddling from other Southeast communities to Juneau for Celebration.
Amalga’s backroom will be the venue for Pamyua’s Friday night show starting at 7 p.m. Later that night is a “Side Stage After Dark” dance party hosted by 2023 Áak’w Rock House DJ The Evening Star (Howie Echo-Hawk) at The Alaskan starting at 9 p.m.
The finale will be Pamyua’s big-tent concert in the lot where Tracy’s Crab Shack 2 is located.
“Each event is totally unique so we are doing our best to showcase the wide breadth of what Indigenous music can sound like and does sound like,” she said.
The event is sponsored by the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska as well as the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council — the latter of which hosts monthly First Friday events that will also be taking place at the same time as Celebration and Áak’w Rock’s “Side Stage.” While that’s a lot happening at once, Vidic said there is an audience for all of it.
“Celebration is a citywide event. Áak’w Rock is a citywide event,” she said. “And this is an excellent opportunity for people in this community to come out and support Indigenous artists, Indigenous causes, and honor the beautiful lands that we call home and the people who have lived on them for millennia.”
Full schedule and ticket information are available at aakwrockfest.com.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
