On Friday, people of all ages came out to see Demon Waffle perform at Founders After Five at Founders Park in downtown Johnson City.
Founders After Five is a free concert series that is run by Downtown Johnson City and the Johnson City Development Authority. The concerts are held every Friday, except the first Friday of the month, and the concerts start at 6 p.m. The concerts are held at the start of Founders Park, in the park’s amphitheater.
“Tonight is the last concert,” said Regan Streetman, Events and Marketing Manager for the Northeast Tennessee Regional Economic Partnership. “Next season begins in the spring. The events are family-friendly and free.”
Founders After Five has been going on for three years. To support all things local, the program tries to find bands that are regional and from the Tri-Cities. One of the bands that played the show on Friday was a local favorite, Demon Waffle.
“This is our first time at Founders After Five,” said Tyler Parkhill, the lead singer of Demon Waffle. “We played back when they used to do the first Friday concerts. We played a couple years for those, but this is definitely our first time playing Founders Park.”
Parkhill said he describes Demon Waffle’s style as a ska band mostly, with some funk, and punk and soul, covering a little bit of everything.
“Ska is hard to describe,” Parkhill said. “It’s a lot like reggae, typically has horns, typically a little faster than reggae, almost always has upbeats in the guitar part. It’s kind of hard to identify unless you hear it and then you’re like ‘Oh! That’s ska!'”
Throughout the night, Demon Waffle performed many of their hit songs as well as covers of other musicians songs. With a laid back, easy going vibe, the band was able to keep the audience entertained throughout the night by bringing the audience together and exposing a whole new generation to the genre of ska.
“A lot of us started out as music education guys at ETSU. A lot of us really enjoy to get young kids introduced to any kind of music with brass in it and kind of get the next generation of the stuff rolling,” said Parkhill.
