From Thursday night, November 14th through Sunday night, November 17th, 2019, Ballard, Washington hosted the 7th annual Freakout Festival featuring all variations of psychedelic and neo-60’s rock. The festival offered seven venues scattered around downtown Ballard with the bulk located on Ballard Avenue. There were 76 live bands performing along with seven DJ’s spinning tracts between the live bands. The venues were diverse and included a coffee shop, a clothing store, a ballroom, a waterfront dive bar and a restaurant. The primary venues with shows going until 1:30 am were the Tractor Tavern, Salmon Bay, the Sunset Tavern, and Conor Bryne. The other three venues hosted early shows until 9 pm and included Caffee Umbria, Filson and Lagunitas. The headliner bands were Alex Maas, Razor Clam, Soft Kill, All Lover Live Set, Monsterwatch, Bearaxe, Night Heron, Racoma, Alesso Peck, Death Valley Girls, El Shirota, Battleme, Bodies On The Beach, Fretland, Jerry Joseph, Naked Giants and Young Heazy. Tractor Tavern and Salmon Bay combined extensive psychedelic light shows to complement the musical performances.
The Freakout Festival had previously been known as the “Psychedelic Holiday Freakout Festival” and began in 2013 in different areas around Seattle. It is now in year seven and is in year three in Ballard. Its production is by Freakout Records. Freakout has appeared at the SXSW Festival and at events in Seattle, New York and Los Angeles among others. The Freakout Festival is sponsored by KEXP Radio, The Vera Project, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Scuttlebut Brewing and Topo Chico, along with others. You can see more on The Ballard Freakout Festival at their website: http://www.the-freakout.com
Check out POW’s photo gallery from our time at Freakout below:
