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The world's largest instrumental music festival is back! Three days of music! 28 bands! Join us at Motorco Music Hall in Durham, NC May 16-18.

Tickets: $14.00 advance/$15.00 door, 3-day pass $30.00

Tickets at http://motorcomusic.com/instrosummit

For the latest news, complete band lineup and times, be sure to check out the SG101 forum thread for this event.

--Crispy Bess
Head Instigator,
Instro Summit

Celebrating its fifth year, and currently the largest all-instrumental music festival in the world, the 2013 Instro Summit started as a four-band, one night show at the Cave in Chapel Hill.  It has since grown into a monster 3-day, 27 band extravaganza, held this year at the Casbah in Durham.  Bands from all over the US and elsewhere gather here to play (but not sing) the finest music they can offer, covering such diverse categories as surf, soul, rock, lounge, country, punk, and “I’m not sure what you’d call it”.  No Jam Band noodlers or Prog-rock experiments here; all bands play music that is fun and easy to dance to, especially with a PBR in one hand and your date in the other. 

Surf music rules the Instro Summit, but when you get this many bands together, you find that everybody does it differently.  Indiana's The Madeira plays lush European and African-inspired melodies, While Tallahassee’s Intoxicators rip out a cowpunk version of surf that would make Joe Maphis AND the Trashmen proud.  Pennsylvanians Great White Caps knock out a giddy Jamaican-flavored pile o’ fun, While bands like Team Void, Blood Red River, Beware the Dangers of a Ghost Scorpion and Kill, Baby...Kill  All have some serious punk attitude in mind, but clearly ain’t listening to the same records.  And we haven’t even mentioned the straight ahead surf of the Diamondheads, El Mirage and the Surge, the Horror-themed stompers of the Coffin Daggers, the Fuzz-filled Psycho-Delics of the High Fidelics, The “Gulag Tunes” of Russia’s Vivisectors, or the aggressive “3rd Wave surf” from the Aqualads, Atomic Mosquitos and others.   And this is only HALF of the bands attending, the rest playing music that is perhaps less definable or more diverse, but just as much fun.

Other highlights this year include the “Can You Play as Wack’d as Link Wray” guitar solo competition, where guitar players try and knock out and wildest solo during the Link Wray song “I’m Branded” to win a $500 suitcase full of prizes and swag, The “Rumble Jam” where as many guitarists as can be fitted on stage all play the song “Rumble” at the same time (20 guitars last year–a new record), plus two special tribute acts: One, a complete performance of the Astronauts “Surfin’ With...” album (considered by many to be the greatest surf music recording of all time), and a special tribute to the late, legendary Alabama surf band the Penetrators, featuring their original rhythm section. 

Tickets are 12 dollars per night, or you can get a three-day pass for 24 dollars.  Cheapskates should note that on Saturday, May 4th, all bands playing from 12-5pm are free and all ages, which also includes the open mic Lunch Jam.  For more details and the complete lineup, visit casbahdurham.com, or look up “The Instro Summit” on Facebook, Google Plus, or MySpace. 

Discuss this event in the SG101 forum thread!

In North Carolina, ‘round about the last weekend in April, some 18 to 20 bands from all over the country gather at the Cave, a tiny basement venue in downtown Chapel Hill, and play music for the crowd of eager patrons and each other. Musical styles range from rock, surf, soul, country, western, lounge, spacey, rockabilly, and few harder to define. What do these bands have in common? None of them sing!

Instro Summit 2011 is our third annual event, held from 7pm Friday, April 29th to 1am Sunday, May first. Currently the largest festival of its’ type in the Southeast, it features bands from as nearby as Durham to as far away as Ulm, Germany, all eager to share their lyric-free music with fans–and bands–that appreciate the genre.

Highlights this year include our three annual audience participation events. First is our “Can You Play as Wack’d as Link Wray?” contest, in which guitar players come on stage and try to out do and out-weird each other, playing their version of the buh-zarre solo from Link Wray’s song, “I’m Branded”. Second is “The Big Bass-Off!” Which works the same way, but with bass players trying to out-thunder each other with their interpretation of John Entwhistle’s solo from the Who’s “My Generation”. The winner of the former contest gets a suitcase full of Instro Summit swag donated by the band, the latter gets a prize package donated by BestBassGear.com. The third event, the "Rumble Jam", is when we encourage any and all guitarists who have a guitar, amp and know how to play "Rumble" to join us on stage and play said song in one massive, fuse-blowing multi-guitar wall of rockin' goodness. Last year we got 12 guitars players--11 male, one female--to join in the fun. This year, we're hoping for more--MANY more!

Of note to folks who are fans of Eastwood’s products is our first annual Instro Summit Raffle, in which our grand prize is a Brand-new Eastwood Saturn 63 guitar, donated by–you guessed it–Eastwood guitars. The Saturn is already a great-looking, great sounding guitar (as recently evidenced by several local musicians whose hands we literally had to pry away said guitar from after we got it set up at our local music store, the Music Loft of Carrboro), but this particular Saturn will be extra-special, as we’re having the Instro Summit logo custom-etched onto the underside of the Saturn’s clear pickguard, making it a unique one-of-one model. Other prizes include one of two Flip Mino HD video cameras, an Eastwood Classic 4 bass (part of a special raffle for folks who buy a ticket on Sunday, may 1st) and a 70 dollar gift certificate from the Music Loft of Carrboro, NC. All raffle proceeds go to the many hardworking, frequently underpaid bands and volunteers that make the Summit possible.