There is something about the village of Lake George that has made this Southern Adirondack town a destination for music festivals and concert series from late spring until mid-fall. Memorial Meltdown, Adirondack Independence Music Festival, Lake George Music Festival, nightly music during the week at the Shepard Park Weekly Concerts (including Fridays at the Lake), Rock the Dock, Jazz at the Lake, Adirondack Bluegrass Festival, Lake George DJ Takeover Music Festival, Rock the Lake Music Festival, and the Lake George Jazz Weekend are just some of the events found on the southern end of Lake George. Now add to this incredible roster of summer music festivals and concerts series a new music festival with a Merlin twist, Wild in the Trees.
A skateboard/music festival hybrid, Wild in the Trees is a most unique event, held October 7-8, 2023, on the grounds of the Lake George Skate Plaza, adjacent to Charles R. Wood Park. A full two days of music, skateboarding and various competitions will be on hand, with 50% of net proceeds benefiting the Ronald McDonald House of the Capital Region.
The logo you see above is an homage to skateboard company Spitfire, an evil looking logo worked into the tree, making it wild. The name of the festival derives from the song “Wild in the Streets” by the Circle Jerks, featured in Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland. The first event was held in 2022, and year two looks to be even better with a stellar lineup, highlighted by Mike Gantzer’s Pro Skater, Candy Ambulance, FUNGKSHUI, Victory Soul Orchestra, Hilltop and many more.
But the festival would not be here without the dedication and perseverance of some local skaters more than 15 years ago.
Frankie Cavone, promoter of Wild in the Trees and owner of Mirth Films, has been an avid skater his whole life, but the Village of Lake George did not have a skatepark in his formative years. In 2008, Cavone and Doug Quimby, among others, began a campaign to raise money to carve out a skatepark on the grounds of the former Gaslight Village, a small amusement park that was on the site until 1989 and demolished in 2010.
It would take eight years for the dream to become a reality, with the park opening in 2016, with a competition at the grand opening, the first of many such competitions. Shortly after, in 2018, Cavone would begin Mirth Films, a company that creates original video content, winning awards and gaining acclaim and positive reviews across the Capital Region.
Videography and skateboarding are intertwined in Cavone’s life, as his love of skateboarding led to him bringing video camera to film tricks and flips, and would lead to beginning to shoot jam band shows in 2015. Getting his friends involved on the video end would be the formation for Mirth Films, which has grown steadily over the past five years.
With support from local promoter Dave Ehmann – who supported the skate park fundraising efforts as far back as 2010 – inspiration came to Cavone with Ehmann’s ADK Fest being a standard bearer for events in Lake George. This long relationship would spur something the genesis of what would become Wild in the Trees.
Between skateboarding, live music and videography, Cavone would take his knowledge of these, imbued with a deeper curiosity, led to forming a bond with Mayor Bob Blais of Lake George (the longest serving mayor in U.S. history, at 52 years). Cavone wanted to keep holding skating competitions each year, but also wanted to incorporate music into the event, making for a hybrid music festival concept. Utilizing ‘Bed Tax’ money that hotels in the Lake George region pay (funding events from Americade to Oktoberfest) Mayor Blais assisted Cavone in acquiring a grant for the music festival. With approval, Wild in the Trees was christened in October 2022 and returns for its sophomore grind October 7-8.
The lineup for this year’s Wild in the Trees builds on the skateboarding aspect of the festival, bringing in a band that is both familiar and has many familiar names and faces included. Mike Gantzer’s Pro Skater is a project led by Aqueous/Death Kings’ guitarist Gantzer and serves as a tribute to the iconic soundtracks featured throughout the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater video game collection. Joining Mike are Evan McPhaden (Aqueous) Ryan Nogle (Funktional Flow, Aqueous, Dirty Work Steely Dan tribute) Jonny Evans (rapper) Billy Bratek (Maufrey) and DJ Fiorella.
Ripping through songs that underscored an entire generation’s experience growing up, Mike is a uniquely qualified musician to lead the charge given his longtime passion for skateboarding, his high ranking scores in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater online, and his metal/rock/punk trio Death Kings.
It’s almost hard for me to overstate my connection to the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games! I was 10 years old when the first one came out and I was already totally obsessed with skateboarding, and the game just solidified what would become a lifelong love of all things skating (and gaming for that matter).
The soundtrack was iconic and was an early introduction to punk, hip hop, ska, and all kinds of really amazing music and culture. Between skate tapes on VHS and the THPS series, I was getting a fast education, and this timeline happened to be when I connected with guitar playing, too. What was beautiful about some of the punk stuff was that it was accessible enough to approach as a beginner, but also represented a lot of frustration I felt with growing up in an unstable and tumultuous home setting that I could get out in a healthy way.
Fast forward twenty years, and music and skateboarding are still two of my biggest passions in life, and I’m grateful everyday for both of them, so you can imagine my joy at getting the chance to do an entire tribute set to the games’ music AT a skate event for Wild In the Trees ’23. Pretty much my ideal situation! I’m also pretty skilled at THPS, and at one point was ranked top 150 in the world on the online leaderboards, I even made a video of one of my runs, because as it is in skating, if you didn’t capture it, did it really even happen?
Mike Gantzer
Cavone adds in the viewpoint of a skater, saying “When people in other countries think of skateboarding, they think Tony Hawk – he got millions of people into skateboarding.” The synonymous nature of Tony Hawk, Skateboarding, Mike Gantzer and the overall music festival mesh together in a ripper of an event.
Cavone first learned of Mike Gantzer’s Pro Skater within the last 12 months, as he was looking to get an artist to headline the festival that would draw in fans of live music and skateboarding, and would be unique to Wild in the Trees specifically. Cavone would end up asking Gantzer about having The Death Kings (a punk/metal trio that pays homage to all things heavy, including Gantzer, Ryan Stasik from Umphrey’s McGee and Michaelangelo Carubba), but the better fit that Gantzer suggested would be his own ‘Pro Skater’ group.
The roots of the skate plaza effort are never lost on Cavone. Filling a community need with his team endeavor is the origin of Wild in the Trees, an event for which the promoter is stoked.
“If it wasn’t for the skaters, we would never have access to do this. If it wasn’t for the stuff that we did when we were kids, we would never have been able to make that bond with the town and the skaters, and seeing people skate the park as we drive by – something we dreamed of when we were younger – is really a blessing.”
Frankie Cavone
With half the profits from ticket sales going to Ronald McDonald House of the Capital Region, a full two days of skateboarding competitions and live music, and an idyllic setting in the Village of Lake George, the team behind the festival is ready for year two of their experimental music festival, one that caters to a broad audience with a rad sesh planned out over the weekend.
Get tickets to Wild in the Trees here.
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