Everclear rocks Petunia Festival’s main stage

DIXON — Everclear’s founder, vocalist and guitarist Art Alexakis, is a sunflower guy, but he was looking forward to getting down with a Petunia in Dixon.

Alternative rock band Everclear performed on the G&M Stella main stage at the Petunia Festival on Monday, immediately after the fireworks.

“I’m not expecting anything but just a rock show and people celebrating the Petunia Festival and just coming out to hear some classic old school alternative ʼ90s rock-and-roll, because that’s what we do,” Alexakis said in a June 28 phone interview.

When a performance at the Petunia Festival was pitched to him, it “looked great,” Alexakis said. It will kick off a four-day stint in the Midwest — an area Alexakis loves — for Everclear, he said.

Everclear, which formed in 1992, consists of Alexakis, guitarist Davey French, bassist Freddy Herrera and drummer Brian Nolan.

The band has released 11 studio albums — four of which have been certified Gold or Platinum — sold over 6 million records and garnered 12 Top 40 Hit Singles on Mainstream Rock, Alternative and Adult Top 40 radio, including “Santa Monica,” “Father of Mine,” “I Will Buy You A New Life,” “Wonderful” and “Everything To Everyone,” according to Everclear’s website.

“We are definitely excited to have Everclear,” said Jenna Dempsey, Petunia Festival’s vice president of marketing, in a June 29 phone interview. “It’s a name most households know. It’s fun to have another great night of entertainment for our community.”

Mixing local bands with national recording acts is fun, because it allows festival organizers to offer the Sauk Valley area a wide range of musical talent, Dempsey said.

For the Petunia Festival, Everclear’s set list — which Alexakis said he prepares himself — included the band’s hits, fan favorites, a few cover songs and some of their newer music.

“I know what songs people want to hear,” Alexakis said. “We’ve been doing this for a long, long time, so it’s not reinventing the wheel every time. Especially when we’re playing soft-ticket shows like festivals and stuff like that.

“I just want to play songs that people love and can sing along with and enjoy,” he added. “Just have fun. I get very frustrated with bands that won’t play their hits. I don’t know why [they won’t].”

Alexakis said he’s incredibly grateful for Everclear’s hit songs, as they’ve given him a life he wouldn’t otherwise have had. He said those songs “have been really good friends to me, and I respect them.”

When asked about what inspires and influences Everclear’s music, Alexakis said everything does.

“Sometimes it’s interpersonal relationships, sometimes it’s what’s going on in the world, sometimes it’s things I make up, sometimes it’s things I read,” he said.

Alexakis said his tendency to write song lyrics in first-person often makes people incorrectly assume that they’re all autobiographical. The fact is, that’s true for a little less than one-third of his songs, he said.

“But then there’s another third where I take different things from my life and different places and create a character — it’s not necessarily me — and I create a song like that,” Alexakis said. “Then there’s some songs that I just have an idea to write a story, and I write a story, and that’s it. It doesn’t have anything to do with real life.”

That story format resonates with a lot of people, including younger people, Alexakis said. Lately, people between the ages of 17 and 35 have made up around 20% to 25% of Everclear’s concert audiences, he said.

“It’s a trip,” Alexakis said. “A lot of kids, their parents turned them onto it, but a lot of the younger kids are just looking for rock-and-roll, and there’s not a lot of rock-and-roll coming out nowadays. You’ve got to really look for it.”

As a result, they tend to gravitate to ʼ90s bands, including Everclear, he said.

“For some reason, they seem to really like our band, which is really cool, I think,” Alexakis said.

Their goal at the Petunia Festival — like at every concert — was to get the crowd up and having fun, just like Everclear’s members would be doing on the stage, Alexakis said. A band that’s genuinely having fun on stage is infectious, he said.

While Alexakis’ multiple sclerosis kept him from being as nimble as he once was, he still moved around on stage, jumping up and down in time with the music.

“It’s just, it’s hard. It’s physically hard. My right side doesn’t move as well as my left side,” he said. “I have to work harder than the average bear and that’s fine. I’ve got an awesome job. I’m a 61-year-old guy playing in a rock band for a living making a decent living. I’m blessed.”

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90s rock band Everclear plays to a capacity crowd while a few fireworks pop off in the distance Monday, July 3, 2023, in Dixon. The headliner brought the downtown portion of the festival to a close. (Alex T. Paschal - apaschal@shawmedia.com/credit)