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Three Crazy Nights


When the annual Athens PopFest finally shuttered shop, one of its organizers felt a festival-sized hole in his life. Gordon Lamb wanted to continue organizing an Athens-based music event that would bring together bands and fans from disparate genres. With a mixture of touring acts and local groups performing over three consecutive nights, Athens Intensified makes its debut this weekend.

Its organizer hopes it will turn into a yearly event. “What it is is a new festival,” says Lamb, a scene vet and longtime Flagpole contributor who, over the years, has been involved with Wuxtry Records, Kindercore, PopFest and the Caledonia Lounge, among others.

“I wanted to keep something going, and keep doing something. There was definitely a level of burnout [with] PopFest, and new involvement in other things [by] my partners… I was the only one that had the energy and desire to keep something going.”

Says Lamb of the new festival’s moniker, “I wanted a name that evoked a mood rather than a style or genre. It’s smaller, at least in the first year, but that could get bigger later.” The three nights, all of which are all-ages, cover differing sounds. The first night features an Elliott Smith tribute featuring locals performing the late singer’s tunes. (Proceeds from that show will benefit Nuçi’s Space.) Late-’60s psychedelic electronic act Silver Apples headlines night two, and the final night ramps up the energy for The Queers—pop-punk stalwart Joe Queer backed by whatever lineup he’s got in tow these days.

“The identity I’m hoping it has and develops into is that it will be an exciting gathering,” says Lamb. “The word ‘intensified’ was chosen deliberately. Where things are ramped up a little bit. Where the headliners and the whole bill will just be damn good acts people will get excited about. It wasn’t casual. It’s a word that has some action behind it, some movement behind it.”

Lamb learned a lot during his PopFest years—and that’s on top of his prior experience booking shows for the house-party DIY venue Ultramod Compound. He says the most valuable skill he’s trying to apply to his new endeavor is to under-promise and over-perform.

“It sounds basic,” he says, “but it’s hard to do. Of course, my tendency is to promise how great something will be and promote and promote, but you really have to work at scaling things back. And that’s on a few fronts—not [over-promising] to the acts how many people will show up, and being upfront during negotiations, not [overstating] to the audience how great the show will be.

“The first bands I approached were bands I’d worked with before, bands that I knew and didn’t have to work uphill to convince it was going to be a good show,” continues Lamb. “And also bands that I didn’t have to sell on Athens: they’d been here before, knew the town, knew the venue and knew me. The Queers, for instance, did us a total solid and actually rerouted their tour so that they could play here in Athens. And Silver Apples have been over doing a tour in Europe; they’re coming back to do one show in New York, then coming down to do the show here.”

Though The Queers and Silver Apples may be the big names on the bill, Lamb has also assembled a bevy of nationally touring and local acts as support. Also on Friday’s bill are Entertainment, Quiet Evenings, I Come to Shanghai and Brothers. Intensified’s third night features an appropriately noisy, pop-punk-leaning lineup, including Karbomb, Burns Like Fire, Grim Pickins & The Bastard Congregation, She Wolf and Muuy Biien.

“They’re all bands that I wanted to see, too,” says Lamb. “They don’t necessarily have huge draw[s] on their own, but I think [they] fit really well on that bill… I thought it was really important for my own sanity, and for the integrity of the festival, that I only book bands whose music I like and can get behind.”

Adds Lamb, “The festival circuit is such a crowded arena. I was committed to having an identity that was very much Athens-based. Not so much Athens artists, but something that is located here, brings people to town and brings out people in town, and also captures the creative feel of Athens.”

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