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Luke Temple

Luke Temple and his bandmates, Tyler Wood and Mike Block, arrived the Tuesday night before the fest. Being the farthest away from Sitka initially, they arrived tired but enthusiastic. It was surprising when they acted as if going to their hotel and sleeping wasn’t their first priority. In fact, they wanted to meet up with us after they got to their hotel, I couldn’t believe it.

Low and behold, Tuesday night’s festivities did not include Luke and Mike, but Tyler did join us down at the Pioneer Bar for a few drinks. It was the first night in a long, exhausting, and fun week.

The first time I saw Luke play was at the Highliner Coffee Company on Wednesday evening. We had received a promotional copy of his new album, Snowbeast, prior to the festival. I had only listened to it a few times but knew it would be playing in my headphones quite a bit (currently, I am hooked). There is something about Luke’s music and performing that is completely captivating, like a string of beautiful moments tied together in song. He played only three tracks that night, but it was inspiring, and got us excited for the next night, of which he would headline.

Thursday night was held at the Sheet’ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi Community House. We weren’t sure what the turn out would be like, as it was a Thursday night and it was Luke’s first time coming to Sitka. It ended up being decent, but we really wanted to pack the house as we knew this night would be a treat for those who came. We told Luke and his band about the firepit that opened up in the center of the room and they were all for opening it up and having a fire during their set.

After Kaninau finished, we politely asked those sitting in the center seats to move to the sides. Upon doing so, a crew of us removed the big doors that sat over the firepit.

Luke began his set to the smell of smoke and crackling of fire. Silver Jackson made some comment that we had come full circle as a record label as we started out in the same environment down on Sandy Beach. The backdrop to Luke’s performance was a panel done by local Tlingit Artist, Will Burkhart. Something about the panel and the brilliance of Luke’s performance was very powerful. It was the only show we felt we really got to sit down and enjoy (as we were running around like crazy people the rest of the fest).

We were happy to have these guys in town from Tuesday to Sunday. They even narrowly escaped a swim in Eastern channel when we tried to take them out for a boat ride. Adventure, excitement, these guys craved those things. We appreciate them coming up to our little festival and hope we can have them again.

Check out Luke Temple’s myspace page.