Ringing applause, whistles and cheers could be heard throughout the line pouring from the doors of Heartwood Soundstage's listening room as excitement built through the waiting crowd.
Heartwood’s indoor stage filled to capacity on Sunday evening as patrons tuned into the venue’s first Protest Song Writing Contest.
Each of the 20 musicians’ sets was entirely different. Some artists performed chants that had the crowd singing along and laughing, while other solo performances silenced the room.
But regardless of whether their lyricism was silly or solemn, each songwriter's mission was the same: to highlight injustice and draw attention to issues in the current political climate.
This was Heartwood’s first contest event, and it was met with excitement from the Gainesville community. The competition fielded 77 total entries, which had to be slimmed down to the top 20 artists for Sunday’s show.
“We used the same rubric we'll be using for the judging, which prioritizes creativity, lyricism, musicality and originality,” said Chelsea Carnes, Heartwood’s 37-year-old director.
The event’s board of judges consisted of writers and community organizers from the Gainesville area.
The venue chose to focus primarily on uplifting local artists for the competition.
Two of these local artists, 29-year-old Quil Darling and 36-year-old John Gray Shermyen, opened the second act of the show as their folk-punk band, Confession Kids.
The band regularly discusses political topics in its music, and the pair was excited about the opportunity to get involved in a contest that fit those ideals.
“I think it's kind of a rarity to see a competition like that in town,” Darling said.
The two performed a song written by Shermyen called “Jeff Goes to Space,” which critiqued Jeff Bezos’ vanity and his trip to space in 2021.
“It’s a larger exploration of that billionaire mindset where you can go and see something that's so fundamentally beautiful and life-changing, and instead, he came down and sprayed champagne everywhere,” Shermyen said.
The proceeds of the event were split between Heartwood and Community Spring, a local nonprofit focused on ending the cycle of poverty and mass incarceration.
Lindsay Kallman, the 38-year-old executive director and co-founder of Community Spring, said the venue was the first to reach out, hoping to get the nonprofit involved in the event.
“They know the organization and felt that the spirit of the event really aligned well with the mission of Community Spring,” Kallman said.
One of the nonprofit's pillars is community, she added, and the basis of Community Spring's mission is a sense of collective well-being.
Jared and Rachel Hart, the 39- and 41-year-old husband-and-wife duo behind Americana band Bohemian Sunshine, tackled the topic of community in their performance on Sunday.
The two performed their song “Every Stain," which is about the role each person has in making the country a better place for everyone.
The song calls for the audience to “lay down [their] star-spangled lies” and recognize the issues faced by people across the United States.
“It’s about not being blind to the injustice, not being blind to the faults, the hurts, all of the things that are causing this uprising,” Rachel said.
The duo tends to write songs about whatever topics are on their mind, Jared said, but since they started making music in 2020, that usually means politics and social issues.
“So we have songs about racial justice,” Jared said. “We have songs about reckoning with the country that we live in.”
After the 20 artists had performed, the contest’s six judges deliberated in the back of the listening room before coming to their conclusion. The event’s winner was Wis Benoit, the final performer of the night, whose song was inspired by the death of George Floyd in 2020.
Director Carnes said Heartwood was happy with the event's turnout and received even more applications than the venue had expected.
“The applications themselves were so high-quality,” Carnes said. “I was really impressed that such high-quality artists took the time to submit and were interested in being involved in the event.”
Heartwood will likely host similar events in the future, she added, especially after witnessing the excitement the Gainesville community brought to this one.
Contact Brandy Sumner at bsumner@alligator.org.
Brandy Sumner is an anthropology and English junior and this summer's music and performance reporter. This is their first semester working at the Alligator. In their free time they enjoy playing guitar, reading and writing.
