Last year Jam on the River came back after a many year hiatus to Penns Landing & was a beautiful day on the river, however the sound quality was awful. This year they switched to Festival Pier, while not the same beautiful surroundings that Penns Landing has to offer the sound there is much better so I understood the switch.
I had heard they recently renovated Festival Pier & was excited to see any changes they had made. As soon as I walked in I noticed a MAJOR DESIGN FLAW. Sand. Sand everywhere. SAND. We're on Columbus Blv...in Philadelphia...on a river. Why is there sand everywhere? And obviously not real sand, but that sand they put in ash trays. And they had been calling for storms all week & my boyfriends first thought was "oh this is going to be fun when it rains."
and low & behold...the rain hit during the second to last band, drizzles at first then the sky opened up with thunderstorms. The venue handled the storm wonderfully & did a great job keeping everyone as dry & safe as they could. Once the storm passed & they resumed the concert...there was now WET SAND everywhere! Where there would normally be perfectly good concrete for everyone to stand, sit or dance there was now gross puddles of wet icky ash tray sand all over.
The music however was great, with the exception of Savoy, who is a good dj but just had no place on a "jam on the river" lineup. Lotus covered Disclosure & was incredible, the Jam Stage was on point all day. Overall a great day but Festival Pier really needs to get rid of that sand.