Covered in flannel: Festival brings ‘90s tribute bands to Grant County Fairgrounds

It’s unlikely that Tool and the Cranberries ever played a concert together. Same thing with Alanis Morissette and Sublime. But for one weekend, ’90s Flannel Fest is bringing the bands, or more accurately, the music together in one place.

For the fourth year, tribute acts primarily based in the Northwest will take over the Grant County Fairgrounds in Moses Lake, playing fan favorites from some of the top grunge and alt-rock bands of the ’90s.

On Friday, the evening kicks off with Tragic Kingdom, a No Doubt cover band from Portland. Then, Seattle’s Nirvana tribute act Nevermind will perform followed by the Denver-based Sublime tribute band 40oz to Freedom.

On Saturday, the day starts with R.E.M. tribute Rockville and Stone Temple Pilots cover band Plush, both from Portland, followed by Denver’s Linger, a Cranberries tribute act.

Portland’s Parabola, a Tool tribute band, plays next, followed by Olympia’s Head Over Feet, an Alanis Morissette cover band. 21 Guns, a Green Day tribute act from Seattle, and Portland’s Fighting Foos, a Foo Fighters cover band, will perform before Jar of Flies, an Alice in Chains cover band from Seattle closes the show.

’90s Flannel Fest comes from Jason Fellman and Kyle Lang, co-founders of Harefest LLC, which produces the tribute band festival of the same name in Canby, Oregon, and other tribute shows like Salem’s Capital City Retro Fest and Seattle Retro Fest.

Along with organizing Harefest and other tribute festivals, Fellman also works as a booking agent and a concert promoter. The Grant County Fairgrounds are clients of his booking agency Sterling Talent, and he’s sent tribute acts to the fairgrounds in the past.

Fellman heard good things about the fairgrounds from bands he’s booked, and he hit it off with fairgrounds director Jim McKiernan, who suggested Fellman bring something bigger to the area. The infrastructure, including overnight camping and nearby hotels, was there, as was reliably good weather for early October, so Fellman was on board.

“It’s on the way to a lot of different places, Spokane, Wenatchee, Tri-Cities,” he said. “People from Seattle go there on vacation. … The weather is a big deal because it’s T-shirts during the day and flannels in the evening.”

As the name implies, ’90s Flannel Fest features several tribute acts covering grunge bands from the decade, though Fellman tries not to be too strict about the lineup, including ’90s alternative and arena rock acts as well.

Artists like the Cranberries and Alanis Morissette, for example, might not immediately make people think of grunge, but they were still connected to the alt-rock scene of the time, and Foo Fighters might not make grunge music, but they’re linked to the genre via Foo Fighters singer Dave Grohl’s time in Nirvana.

Fellman also works to ensure ‘90s Flannel Fest celebrates female performers.

“The tribute world, it’s pretty dude-heavy on the artist side of things,” he said. “We really want to make sure that we’ve got female singers represented so we always want to make sure we’ve got female-fronted acts.”

The other thing Fellman takes into consideration is how many hit songs the bands being covered had. If an artist only had one or two well-known songs, the cover band might not be able to pull a big crowd because not everyone knows the band’s entire discography as well as the cover band does.

“The bands that we have, the real bands usually have one of two attributes,” he said. “The real bands that they’re covering, they either have a lot of mainstream success or they have considerable more of a sort of cultured, cult following.”

Either way, Fellman suggests the cover bands leave deep cuts off the setlist and stick with the chart toppers or cult favorites. Deep cuts at festivals, he said, can suck the energy out of the moment.

“If it wasn’t on the radio, (the audience) won’t know it and they’re going to go get a drink,” he said.

Attendees looking for a drink will have several food and drink options to choose from, and there will also be a sports bar in the festival space, something Fellman added after noticing some fans would hang out at their campsite until their game of choice was over.

If you don’t need to check in on a game, there are only 15 minutes in between sets, so the music is fairly nonstop all weekend. Tickets are available for one or both days, or attendees can choose to only attend Saturday evening rather than the full day.

Fellman, who drums in a Journey cover band, said it took little convincing for the Moses Lake community and fans from surrounding areas to get on board with ‘90s Flannel Fest. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, and audiences are usually especially excited to see cover bands because they live in a market where the real band doesn’t tour or the real band has long since broken up.

There’s a non-pretentious spirit to tribute festivals, and for the musicians on stage and the fans in the audience, it all comes down to a love of the music.

“Everybody in the band knows that they’re not the real band,” Fellman said. “They bring that friendly attitude with them. They’re just happy that the audience is there enjoying the music as much as they do, because if you’re playing a tribute band, no one’s getting rich playing in these bands. That love of the music, I really feel it’s a through line between the band and the audience.

“They’re always like ‘These really are great songs and great performances.’ It’s fun to share that and remember what it was that you loved about the music when it first came out.”