Image: Walker Art Center
Nostalgia for the vibrant sounds featured at Rock the Garden, where indie melodies intertwined with family bonds in the heart of Minneapolis
My parents were there for My Morning Jacket, and I was there for my parents. The alternative/indie band from Louisiana had my parents’ iPod in a chokehold. “Outta my system,” off the band’s 2011 album Circuital, which differed from my usual Justin Bieber-filled iPod Shuffle, echoed through our red kitchen while my dad would make his famous spaghetti. I choreographed dances to My Morning Jacket songs and even created parodies on our family grand piano. So when we saw the band live at Rock the Garden, I understood why these songs were the closest thing to hymnals I’d ever know.
Every year, my parents would grab our fold-up camping chairs and my mom’s blue Hamline-Mitchell blanket from where she graduated from law school. We would jump into the mini-van, parked blocks away from the Walker, and go to the vast green hill with hundreds of people. It felt like magic. The green lawn I saw every day on the way to daycare was transformed into what I thought was the equivalent of Woodstock.
I was always tethered to my parents’ hips, studying their movements and watching them laugh and charm everyone they met with seeming effortlessness. I would crane my neck to look up at my dad, weaving in and out of the families and hipsters to land us a perfect spot. My dad carried me and my sweaty, color-changing Crocs, getting me tacos, ice cream, and fries from the food trucks whenever I got tired. There was never anything they wouldn’t do for me.
Then came this announcement in 2022 from David Safar, The Current’s managing director: “Over the years, Rock the Garden empowered connections across the community, and now MPR and the Walker will dream up new events that enable those connections.” COVID-19 had canceled the 2020 and 2021 events, leaving the last Rock the Garden in 2022.
‘New events that enable those connections’ – this well-crafted PR statement left a bitter taste in my mouth. How could these events ever live up to the memories created at Rock the Garden?
It was where I saw my parents’ favorite bands from the top of my dad’s shoulders, looking down at the hundreds of craft beer-holding “Keep Calm and Carry on” t-shirt-wearing, handlebar-mustached hipsters. It is where my parents taught me about the hilarious Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein. It is where I saw my mom cry when her favorite song played.
At Rock the Garden, I saw a lot of music, even if I didn’t always get it. In 2011, at the ripe age of 8, when I was at my first Rock the Garden, there was no way I was appreciating the musical genius of Booker T. Jones. There was no way I understood the complex lyricism of My Morning Jacket, but my love for music and how it brought people together formed.
In 2015, I was more attuned with Modest Mouse, which I learned from my dad’s scratched CDs and Guitar Hero. I was a fan of Conor Oberst, who was a cousin to my mom’s cousin, and Belle and Sebastian, who I still believe shaped my love for Indie rock. I hear their songs in my music shuffle and am taken back to the magic of the concerts. I look back on those memories fondly, but I never thought I wouldn’t be able to experience it again.
At Rock the Garden, I learned to see my parents in a new light – to view them as more than my mom and dad.
They were two people who met in Colorado and fell in love at a ski resort. They were the people who would eat peanut butter out of a jar to save up for a house. My dad was a DJ and drummer in the band Tulsa Hotdogs. They were the hopeful couple who dealt with a miscarriage and got a puppy instead. At times they were the hard asses and the villains, but damn, they could hold their beer. They shared stories and made me feel like I had the insider scoop. I learned all these things on that hill in those camping chairs that smelled like bug spray. Rock the Garden was a gift, a love letter to Minneapolis, and it’s where I fell in love with my parents.
Last year, my parents moved from Minneapolis to a small town where they want to spend the rest of their lives, with a house on the river for my dad to fish and plenty of space for my mom to bring home another dog. There’s one gas station and no stoplights. For me, there is no more Rock the Garden, no more Minneapolis with them. Who knows if I will stay or leave this city where I learned to love this music? But my parents’ new town has a brewery with live music and a bar where the regulars drink for free. So I’ll be back, at least to visit.