Fort Frances- Bastille Days, Milwaukee, WI 7/11/15

photo by Will Piper

While winters in Milwaukee are rough, summers are a myriad of good times.  As "The City of Festivals," Milwaukee offers up Bastille Days-- a four day celebration of French and Creole culture in the streets of downtown Milwaukee.  This festival starts with a 5k "Storm the Bastille" run on Thursday night and carries on throughout the weekend with unique food and beverage stations, Fraco-art booths, local and regional vendors, and lots of family fun.  Did I mention that there is a lot of music too?

Enter amid all of this, and the backdrop of a large inflatable Eifel Tower, Fort Frances, a band from Chicago that that has little to nothing to do with Franco-American culture, but a lot to do with fun. For the second consecutive year, Fort Frances was a featured Bastille Days artist, this year moving up to the big stage in Cathedral Square Park.  The band delivered a 90 minute set which spanned the history of their material.  This was by far the largest crowd I've seen Fort Frances play for... I've seen them play to as little as a handful of people at last year's rain-soaked Bastille Days set, to perhaps about 75 people at an earlier Club Garabaldi show.  This time, conservatively speaking, there were 150 people seated in the bleachers, plus the group that was listening and having kids play on the jungle-gym and explore the cultural booths in the back of the park.

This past May, Fort Frances released its third E.P. No One Needs To Know Our Name.  This album  was recorded in fall of 2014 in Maine with producer Sam Kassirer (who has worked with national acts such as Lake Street Dive and Josh Ritter).  The songs off of No One Needs To Know Our Name feature a fuller sound and increased instrumentation when compared to Fort Frances's earlier material.  Simply put, the band continues to evolve, and for the better.  This summer, the Chicago trio has been performing more with additional members, including keyboardist/guitarist Jason Ryan who sat in with the band at Bastille Days.  Ryan's presence not only helped transform the newer songs live, but also provided richer and more complex timbres to the band's earlier material.  Drummer Aaron Kiser continues to hone his skills and establish himself as a driving force behind the band. The one-two-punch of bassist Jeff Piper and singer/guitarist David McMillan tie everything together.  McMillan's affable nature and humility on and off the stage makes the act an especially approachable and fun one.

It is clear at that these guys enjoy playing music together and can have fun in any setting.  Some fun take-away memories from this performance included the jam during "Up on Cripple Creek" (a cover from The Band) causing many of the folks in the front row to dance, an overzealous Fort Frances fan asking David to play Earth Wind and Fire towards the end of the show, and the general exuberance and confidence that the band displayed with its most recent material.  For fans traveling to Appleton for Mile of Music in a couple of weeks, Fort Frances is an act you don't want to miss.

Setlist:
How To Turn Back Again
Ghosts of California
Anonymous
Habits
These Are The Mountains Moving >
Cities in Dust >
Boogie On Reggae Woman^ >
Jam >
Plastic Hearts
City by the Sea (slow intro)
Best of Luck
Year Ago
I Got Love
You Got the Wrong Man
If the Ocean Runs Dry
Up on Cripple Creek*
Building a Wall

^- Stevie Wonder cover
*- The Band cover