The Mountaintop Musicians are a student and community member run organization geared towards promoting the appreciation of live music. The festival can run from ten hours to two days in length and features bands from all over the Southeast region. History:
Sewaneroo started in the spring of 2008 with a simple idea and 1,500 dollars. The first festival was held on the hallow grounds of Guerry Gart
h on central campus. The featured acts were various student bands performing music strictly from deceased musicians: The Beatles, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, and Sublime. We had a mild turnout, but an incredible amount of support from local and community organizations. From the beginning, Sewaneroo has always been a venue for live music, but also for community organization. To celebrate that relationship, we lined the enclosing stone walls with tables full of activities, information, and representatives eager to discuss their individual organization's mission. This was also the year that we befriended Jeff Mallory of J.A.M Live sounds, who has done an incredible job as our sound and equipment guru. While the first Sewaneroo was low-key and mild-mannered, we wanted to increase the size and reputation of the festival for the second year. To do this, we had to plan and organize much more than before. As a result, our budget increased by 500 percent. This allowed us to start exploring tangible options for making this festival not only more established, but unique as well. We immediately chose to change locations and host the festival at Lake Cheston, the University’s outdoor amphitheater. We did this accommodate the potential size and magnitude of what we were hoping to achieve. Secondly, we invited bands from all over the southeast to play; bands that were gathering a following and trying to make a name for themselves. More than what we wanted from them (crowd pleasing), we wanted to give these bands a place to play and a chance to share their music. Third, we sought out corporate sponsorships and found a little help from our friends in Chattanooga, TN with Coca-Cola. Finally, we raised student and local support through intense advertising and community engagement. To attract the family-oriented crowd, we purchased inflatable games and slides, and hosted a picnic in the early afternoon. In the end, the festival lasted 12 hours and featured 16 bands (The Big Nekkid, Swamp Wampus, Moose, Burrows the Band, Rick Jobe and the Swing Time Cowboys, etc). When we stepped back from the 2009 festival, we had to take a big breath and debate what worked and what did not work. Furthermore, we had to decide if we wanted to grow anymore than our current size. We decided on two things. First, that we were going to cut any excess services to put more money in to bands. Second, we decided to have the event take place over two days, with the option of camping out at Lake Cheston. We found that cramming 16 bands into 12 hours was an ill-planned idea and we wanted to give each band more time to perform. After the success of the previous year's festival, we were allocated a much larger sum that allowed us to improve the quality of our sound and hire bands that are more expensive. The bands for the 2010 festival were Moon Taxi, The Dirty Guv'Nahs, Moose, The Big Nekkid, The Deep Vibration, The Magnetic Elite, and several student bands such as Forest Mountain Hymnal, Oedipus and the Mama's Boys, Headband, The University Jazz Band, and Tyrannosaurus S*x. On Saturday of the festival, we ran into a weather problem and opted to moved the festival indoors to Cravens. Usually, a poor decision for turnout, but we ended up having a great crowd. The evening's highlight was when Moon Taxi's Trevor Turndrup ran with his wireless guitar all round the venue and out into the adjoining soccer field, while still playing a song. After the success and somewhat stress of a planning a two-day festival in 2010, we decided to bring back the one-day approach for the 2011 Sewaneroo Music Festival. However, while we did not have as many bands, we placed more emphasis on hiring quality musicians and bands to attract a larger student and community audience. When we were planning which bands we should bring in, we were luckily contacted by the manager for a musician by the name of Johnny Neil. He informed us that Johnny would be in the area and was interested in performing. Naturally, after reading his biography and hearing his tunes, we had to have him. By the end of the night, Space Capone, Moon Taxi, and Johnny Neil tore the stage up and made the 2011 Sewaneroo, one of the most memorable festivals yet.
