Door Daze Music Festival Rocks The Hudson Valley Scene

Hudson Valley-based band, New Vision, took the stage at the house show venue Radio Shack during the all-day Door Daze on Oct. 15 in New Paltz. Photo by @okayykaciee

A whole year has passed, a new semester is here and many things have changed — but the local music scene certainly has not. The self-made, non-commercial DIY festival, Door Daze, is back again, and is much more ambitious than the first iteration of the all-day concert.

Last year’s festival process consisted of renting a massive lot from The Blueprint in Kingston and putting on a two-day show complete with 20 acts and 15 vendors. The DIY collective Doors @ 7 hosted four consecutive shows for Door Daze this year, from Oct. 13 to 16, partnered with Byrdhouse Records, an Albany music collective. These shows spanned from Balmville Grange in Newburgh, The Dojo Beyond in Albany, RadioShack and Blueberry Field the next day, respectivley. 

This year, Doors @ 7 has taken a more DIY-level approach to the festival, given that it would be easier to spread out bands among four separate shows. This allows attendees to go to multiple shows throughout the weekend, as well as a greater reach that having different locations would provide. After the success of last year’s Door Daze, the support for DIY festivals is plain to see, and the hype is sure to continue to build as the shows become more accessible. 

Doors @ 7 is also fundraising by donating their proceeds from Door Daze towards local causes! There was a food drive on Oct. 15 and 16, where showgoers were invited to bring non-perishable food items to the festival to donate towards the local non-profit, Millions of Butterflies. Funds from entry fees to the Door Daze will also be donated to the New York Abortion Access Fund as well as the GoFundMe for local restaurant Mexican Kitchen’s recent fire.

The festival covered all music tastes, the pure sonic variety of sounds including new-age post-punk bands like Oolong, classic-sounding 70s-esque groups like Seeing Double, hard-hitting drop-chord metal such as Brotality, as well as New Paltz indie fan-favorites New Vision, Alliteration and Kablamo! This doesn’t even begin to cover the many other acts that are on the bill for the festival, and with such a plethora of genre, there was bound to be something for everyone at Door Daze.

The first date at the Balmville Grange on Oct. 13 at 7 p.m., kicked off the weekend with a four-act hardcore metal bill, headlined by Brotality. This date was full of headbanging and moshing, as all the bands maintained that heavy and powerful sound throughout the night. The Dojo Beyond set on Oct. 14 was a four-band bill with music starting at 8:30 p.m., and was accompanied by vendors as well as comedy acts, providing entertainment for those that are interested in more than just music. 

Oct. 15, the biggest night of Door Daze, was reminiscent of last year’s festival — minus the massive parking lot. This show consisted of 11 bands from noon until midnight. RadioShack had live music available all Saturday, so anyone was welcome to come and spend the day listening to the tunes. The amount of people inside grew as acts like Alliteration, No Momentum and Oolong started the event off and brought the house down. Wonderful five-piece bands followed them up to close out the night, including Self-Help, Tiny Blue Ghost and Seeing Double. The final show of the festival took place at Blueberry Field from noon to 6 p.m., maintaining a more relaxed and acoustic vibe. The closing six-act bill closing Door Daze included solo artists Serena Hope, Laura Minoia and Kendra McKinley, who soothed the crowd outside the Groovy Blueberry.

Co-founder of Doors @ 7, Noelle Janasiewicz, spoke about the planning for the festival, the future of Door Daze and the goals of the collective. “I love working with bands, I love working with all these musicians and watching them succeed essentially. If I can play a part in that, then my heart succeeds,” she said, explaining her motivation.

 “I think that both Door Daze have been things for people to remember because of how many impactful and poetic moments that speak volumes about the sense of community and the magic that happens here, further than just the documentary,” she added, referencing their film under the same name about the local DIY scene that kicked off Doors @ 7 as a company.

Finally, Janasiewicz sums up what Doors @ 7 truly is: “Creative support. We’re very all encompassing, very diverse and the goal regardless of what the medium is, is to support artists in any capacity we can.”