This past Saturday, June 6, Of The Trees wrapped up his short, 3-stop Park Service Tour with an outdoor show in New York City. Park Service was the second show at the start of the 40th anniversary season of SummerStage in Manhattan’s famous Central Park. Of The Trees also played a Park Service show in Chicago and Washington D.C..
The stage production for Park Service definitely provided an immersive outdoor feel to complement the setting of Central Park. The sides of the stage were adorned with moss and punctuated with brightly colored mushrooms. Most impressive were the two rows of lights draped with more moss that would rise and fall from the overhead rigging. Combined with lasers and a huge LED screen, the lighting production for Park Service was top tier.
Ironically for Of The Trees, an artist whose entire project celebrates plants and nature, the weather did him no favors for an outdoor spring tour. Thunderstorm warnings forced Team Of The Trees to condense the set times for the show to end at 8 pm instead of 10 pm. Thankfully, all of the artists got some time to play, but not as much as was planned.
Snuffy and Chmura started the afternoon with a quick 30-minute B2B set. Jade Cicada took the reins a bit before 6 pm and played for about 45 minutes to set the stage for Of The Trees. OTT did his best to jam as much action into his time as he could, playing a bunch of tunes from his Moonglade Park album. He even made the time to sneak in his newly released collab with Tape B, “Brackish.”
Unfortunately, Of The Trees wasn’t even able to make it to 8 pm, as the storm moved so quickly, he was forced off the stage because of the approaching lightning. The crowd did get to enjoy over an hour of his ice cold bass from the plains of Maine, and his understanding fans took the news in stride. Within 10 minutes of the event site evacuation, the skies opened and the rain came pouring down.
Despite the unforgiving weather on Saturday night, the local Park Service Field Walk was a huge hit with gorgeous daytime weather. I saw quite a few fans rocking their patches with pride at the show, and everyone I talked to who made the time to engage with the Field Walk program enjoyed the experience. Immersive show programming like this goes a long way to bring fans together and reminds us all that our music community can be whatever we make it.
If you want more Of The Trees production in a spectacular outdoor setting, then you should check out his second annual Camp Alderwild scheduled for August 28 + 29 in Telluride, CO. The lineup is stacked with talent, including Daily Bread, and set in the idyllic wooded mountains of the Colorado Rockies. Limited tickets and packages remain, so no time like the present to make plans for the end of August.
You can also catch Of The Trees making festival appearances at Elements, Secret Dreams, Same Same But Different, and Hulaween later this year. To keep up with all the latest music and announcements from Of The Trees, connect with him using the socials below.
