Kilby Court Block Party: Fans come to Utah from all over for the music

Amber Vaughn came a long way — from Wichita, Kansas, to Salt Lake City — so she and her family, including four kids whose ages range from 9 to 13, could hear Death Cab for Cutie perform.

The familly were among the hundreds braving the wind and impending rain Friday at the Utah State Fairpark to hear the music at the fifth Kilby Court Block Party.

The three-day music festival features dozens of acts — both national headliners and Utah bands — in what started as a celebration of the Salt Lake City garage-shack venue Kilby Court and has grown into one of Utah’s largest music events. This year’s block party coincides with the venue’s 25th anniversary.

It is an event that now draws fans from all 50 states and even from other countries, said Nic Smith, the managing director of S&S Presents, which owns Kilby and other Utah music venues.

At its booth, independent radio station KRCL had a sign where people could fill out where they came from. Some of the responses were: Cleveland, Ohio; Irvine, California; New Jersey; Indiana; Arkansas; Florida, and even Bristol, England.

Vaughn said she and her group, who wore matching pink shirts with smiley faces on them, found the block party because they are fans of the indie-rock band Death Cab for Cutie.

“We don’t pick festivals that have music that we don’t know the vibe,” Vaughn said. “The people who listen to Death Cab for Cutie and Joanna Newsom are people that it’s OK that they’re [the kids] going to be around.”

The block party is the eighth festival the family has attended, she said, and the first time the kids have flown on an airplane. She said the family was enjoying the festival in its early hours Friday, because of the views of the mountains and the weather; usually at festivals, she said, they get “drenched in sweat.”

Michelle Martinez, 26, drove to Salt Lake City from Denver for the block party, her first time. She said she learned about the block party from listening to a Salt Lake City band, PERSONA 749, on Spotify — and the streaming service said the band would be at the party. (They’re scheduled to perform Sunday.)

”They’re super-small — and smaller bands, they’re almost harder to see,” Martinez said.

Martinez said she goes to festivals for different genres all the time, but this is her first indie-rock festival. “This was very specific,” she said of Kilby, adding that “the majority of what I listen to” is experimental rock, people who use soundboards.

She also said she liked that the block party had free mobile charger stations, and that even with the sponsors, the event didn’t feel like “a money grab.”

Even some vendors came from afar to be at the block party. Dylan Coyle, who is from Ireland, was operating a booth, Just Squeezed, selling freshly squeezed lemonade. The company is based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and makes the rounds at music festivals; Coyle said they were at Coachella last month, and next weekend will be at the electronic-dance festival EDC Las Vegas.

”It’s pretty fun coming all around the world just for lemonade,” Coyle said. He added that the gray weather Friday reminded him of home in Ireland.

Friday’s schedule lists 23 acts across the block party’s four stages, culminating with the headliner, Vampire Weekend. The party will continue for the next two days, with Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service closing out Saturday and LCD Soundsystem headlining Sunday.

Utah acts are sprinkled throughout the lineup — such as Little Moon, the Springville band that won NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert last year, performing on Sunday.

Fans on Friday packed in front of the four stages, some shivering in their festival fits. This year’s layout of the block party is more streamlined, easier to navigate and with more ADA spaces and places for people to relax in between acts.

There also is a silent disco area at the south end of the festival grounds, in the Pioneer building. Listeners put on headphones that glowed blue, red or green, danced to the songs as DJs performed their sets in the same room, all under the figure of a horse covered in mirrors like a disco ball.

Friday’s DJs were Justin Cornwall, who ran the disco — as well as Nate Lowpass, Gabba and Mister Nighttime. Cornwall said he and the DJs, as well as the company that supplied the headphones, are all from Utah.

Every year the Kilby Block party grows, booking bigger and bigger acts — many of whom have played at the garage venue before they made it big.