Somerville Porchfest returns May 9 with more than 530 bands spread across porches, yards and other spots in a citywide day of free music. The one-day festival will again move through Somerville in three two-hour sessions, with concerts from noon to 2 p.m. in West Somerville around Davis Square and Tufts University, 2 to 4 p.m. in Central Somerville around Porter and Magoun squares, and 4 to 6 p.m. in Union Square and East Somerville.
Jill McCracken said there is little that matches the experience of drifting from place to place and being drawn in by whichever song catches the ear, a feeling that has helped make Somerville Porchfest a local ritual since 2011. Organized by residents and overseen by the Somerville Arts Council, the festival now draws thousands of people and has become a major exposure opportunity for performers trying to be heard in a crowded field.
The scale is part of the appeal and part of the problem. Evan Joseph Ringle said, “You’ve got bands sleeping on top of bands,” while DJ Saucy Lady summed up the atmosphere more bluntly: “Everyone's playing everywhere.” For performers, that density can work in their favor. Ryan DiLello said, “We can just roll into our front yard and play to a couple hundred people,” and Adric Giles said, “It's amazing to get to peer into somebody's world for a second and see what they're working on creatively.”
The city has tried to keep up with the crowd by doubling its porta-potty count this year, bringing 98 temporary public toilets to neighborhoods across Somerville, most of them along the Community Path. Even so, Iaritza Menjivar said, “With over 500 bands participating, I worry that no amount of portable restrooms will feel like it's enough, unfortunately.” The Arts Council has also put together a map of every band, a practical necessity for an event that asks people to plot a route before they head out.
That planning has become part of the festival itself. Porchfest is a decentralized, do-it-yourself event, and while that looseness is central to its charm, it also means the site has had trouble keeping up with traffic on the day of the festival. This year’s answer is a familiar one: more bands, more routes, more bodies in motion, and one city trying to make room for all of it.
The music will end by 6 p.m., but the event's success will be measured in something simpler than crowd size. If Somerville Porchfest still feels like a place where neighbors can wander into a stranger’s yard, hear something unexpected and keep moving with a new song in mind, then the festival is doing exactly what made it matter in the first place.
