“California Roots is a local celebration of unity… blending reggae, rock, hip hop with cosmic good vibes for fans, families and music lovers.”
For two years now I’ve been super grateful to be able to attend the CaliRoots music festival as Media pro with Event Santa Cruz and Brick House Media. This annual local music festival is just down Highway 1 at the legendary Monterey County Fairgrounds. It takes place at the same venue where the legend himself, Jimi Hendrix, famously burned his guitar at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.
The CaliRoots festival is a perfect blend of California reggae acts like the always amazing Stick Figure to local Santa Cruz acts like The Expendables, who also performed this year (but sadly I missed their epic set). Then you have global icons and superstars like all three Marley boys; Stephen, Damian and Ziggy to inspire us all, and to help keep Bob’s memory alive.
My own highlights this year were again “The Elovaters” who hail from Boston, but you would swear are from Cali themselves and seem to be bros given all their cameos with other bands. Surprising acts like Xavier Rudd who hails from down under and literally blew us all away with his multi-instrument looping on guitars, harmonicas, drums and plays a mean tribal didgeridoos. The acts are as varied as the crowd and we all got down to the epic E-40, Too-Short and then OG himself Ice-Cube who played all the right mix of our beloved rap tracks. Then had Pepper and Rebelution who never disappoint with so much energy on-stage, the vibe just gets into you. Acts like Lupe Fiasco hailing from Chicago, brought the rock hip hop energy and of course Collie Buddz had the crowd puffing out.
But again, like last year my personal favorite was Stick Figure featuring KBong on the keys and Johnny Cosmic on guitar. Thankfully they were a late add-on to the already epic line-up and literally blew up the smaller of two main stages. Their energy, their vibe and the tracks just align so perfectly well, then add in wild fire pyrotechnics show and WOW. Mind blown and so dam fun to be in the live high vibe crowd, oh did I mention they live streamed all the shows this year for the world to view!
So if you missed out, sorry and here are just a few of the 2,500+ images I shot, so DM me for more to see from these epic sets. The good news is CaliRoots 2025 is already on sale and at an early-bird discount, and the dates to plan for: May 23-25, 2025 https://www.californiarootsfestival.com
Big thanks to the crew at Good Vibes Productions, Event Santa Cruz, IVPR, and CaliRoots Festival for all the love and support. View the past CaliRoots lineups from 2010 to 2024 here.
Jared Brick, bhmedia.co
