Museyon’s Guide to: Northside Festival

 
For the third year running, New York’s L Magazine is taking over the northside of Brooklyn for their music, film and art festival, aptly named, Northside Festival. The festival reaches from South Williamsburg and the Williamsburg Bridge to the far reaches of Greenpoint, taking over music venues, art galleries and this year, a church. The festival also includes Northside Open Studios, which allows visitors into many galleries and artist studios in the area.

Northside begins this year on the evening of June 16th until Sunday, June 19th. Badges that get you into all the shows and give holders discounts on food and drink at designated venues around town are available for purchase ahead of time for a discount or at the event itself. Venues allow badge holders into shows on a first come first served basis. What does this mean? That each venue allows a certain number of badge holders into the venue and once that number is reached, that is that. After that, you can buy a ticket at the door, which is a nominal cost, under $10 normally. Note that many venues are 21 and over.
 
The different music showcases are curated and presented either by the L Magazine staff or in most cases, various media outlets, blogs, and music labels. One of the best shows of the festival is local legends Beirut at McCarren Park, Friday, with gates opening at 5pm. Unfortunately, advance tickets to the show are sold out and only badge holders will be allowed in. For Saturday, our pick is to head to Red Star Bar in Greenpoint for the Whatever Blog’s showcase featuring: The Nico Blues, The Señors of Marseille, Little Wolf, Hooray for Goodbye and Small Mountain, with dj Jesse Elliott (of the band These United States). If the line-up there isn’t enough to entice you, Red Star serves delicious organic burgers and is located right across from Paulie Gee’s, whose Neapolitan pizza’s are baked in an oven specially ordered form Italy.
 
Northside Headquarters
240 N. 12th St., Williamsburg (between Union and Driggs)

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