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Music

Oaktopia Was the Festival Denton Needed Right Now

The music scene in Denton has an uncertain future, but Oaktopia at least proved the town can still host a great music festival.
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Oaktopia Was the Festival Denton Needed Right Now

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Some people may have gone into the weekend in Denton wondering what a music festival like Oaktopia — with its nationally popular headliners, sponsored outdoor stages, coconut oil vendors, face-painting, and hula-hooping young women — says about the state of the city’s music scene.

There’s been substantial hand-wringing about the subject following the closure, in the last year, of several venues that had long harbored many of Denton’s most musically gifted artists, weirdos, and college kids starting their first bands. So it seems fair to ask, especially if you’re trying to find some kind of angle to briefly recap a music festival without resorting only to vague platitudes about how “fun” everything was (and, to be clear right off the bat, everything was really fun): Can Oaktopia tell us anything about the condition of Denton music and the always ill-defined scene?

Rubber Gloves, the basement at J&J’s, Hailey’s, and Banter are still gone. No one seems to know what, if anything, is going to take their place. There is, as always, tension between commercial development and DIY attitudes. There is some unjustified resentment toward a celebrity interloper who used to practice Scientology. There are T shirts that say “Keep Denton Not Southlake.”

There are very real issues at hand that boil down to whether a small, growing city can support both an independent music community and a downtown square with two new restaurants selling $12 hamburgers.

Obviously, none of these things were resolved over the course of Oaktopia’s three days. Norah Jones did not announce, mid-set, that she was moving back to Denton to re-open Rubber Gloves. The Denton City Council did not issue a decree banning acoustic “Wonderwall” covers from any and all coffee shops in a 10-mile radius. If we’re lucky, some UNT philosophy undergrad saw Felt & Fur play Andy’s on Friday, and was inspired to host a night for local noise acts at her off-campus house.

I didn’t see any of that.

I did see pretty big crowds who seemed to be having, yes, a lot of fun. I saw shows by bands visiting and homegrown. I saw a well-run festival that made excellent use of Denton’s downtown. It was the kind of festival that any self-respecting music town would be proud to claim, the kind of festival that could and should co-exist with a year-round calendar of affordable performances in smaller spaces throughout Denton.

Most of all, I saw people who seemed overjoyed to be listening to live music, or playing live music, with others who were just as happy to be there. Hopefully those people will be just as enthusiastic about supporting the music made in their own backyards, about going to shows in Denton the 364 days a year Rae Sremmurd isn’t playing on Oak Street.

The hangovers and Oaktopia afterglow will evaporate soon. But if they put their heads together — along with the heads of anyone who couldn’t afford Oaktopia tickets — then maybe Denton’s music scene will be OK.

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