What's In Store For You at The Meadows
Now that you've got your wristband, have a peek at what's in store. Frequent Edible Queens contributor Allie Misch shares her experience meeting the band Lewis del Mar at last year’s Meadows Music Festival and tasting their way through the Queens-created delights of the food court.
Lewis del Mar walks like they are already famous. The singer-songwriter duo from Rockaway Beach strolls through the Citi Field’s parking lot with equal parts comfort and confidence. They look like they belong.
It’s noon on October 2, 2016, and Max Harwood and Danny Miller have just opened day two of The Meadows Music & Arts Festival. The sky is overcast at the start of their set; a thick cloud of marijuana smoke almost goes unnoticed as it dissolves with the sound of their first song. The audience, a mix of mostly 20-somethings clad in windbreakers, chokers and witchy hats, grows as Miller gyrates a mic stand and leans into their adrenaline-fueled performance. There’s no shortage of red eyes in the crowd (a combination of last night’s hangover and Sunday morning’s pregaming) but they move with the music; painted skin in full-body dancing while the front row mouths the words.
Twenty-four hours before this show, the band played for hundreds of people at the Austin City Limits Music Festival in Austin. Five days after The Meadows, Lewis del Mar released their self-titled debut album and embarked on a world tour following a launch party at Rockaway Beach Surf Club. The next year of their life took them to London, Liverpool and across the United States.
But right now, the boys are hungry. “Can we get ice cream?” Harwood smiles, beaming just as bright offstage as he did behind his drum kit.
The two ebb and flow on their album and in real life. They are childhood best friends, playing music together since elementary school band (though their current project is only three years old), and seem to share most things in life: a home, musical influence, the name shared by both of their fathers (Lewis, of course) and a substantial love of tacos and tequila, which makes Tacoway Beach a natural fit.
Inside The Meadows’ “Festival of Queens” (a sampling of local food trucks curated by Joe DiStefano), Miller settles in with ceviche from La Esquina Del Camaron Mexicano. It reminds him of the seafood he finds in his father’s homeland of Nicaragua and Harwood’s parent’s home in Panama. Their familial and coming-of-age experiences on the East Coast and abroad heavily influence Lewis del Mar’s music, which can be easily pinpointed when listening carefully. The song “Puerto Cabezas, NI” sings of “fresh fish and sticky plantains” on Miller’s trip to discover his heritage; “Malt Liquor” records a street preacher on the border of Bushwick and Ridgewood (the home of their first NYC apartment), and the self-titled album in its entirety reflects the spirit of the sea.
“We saw [The Rockaways] as a total personification of the art we were trying to make: the industrial-meets-natural sort of stood for Max and me as individuals and the overall soundscape we were trying to combine,” says Miller. The pair recorded their album inside their 400-square-foot bungalow off 98th street, capturing the energy and isolation of the area along the way. “We didn’t have enough money to have a separate studio, so we recorded it in my bedroom,” says Harwood of his loft that overlooks the living room flooded with production gear.
When they first moved to New York from DC, the two would make music after long nights as bartenders and waiters in the city, which they feel shaped their narrative. “To be a young artist here that’s struggling and making your way through the grind, there’s no bigger palette of inspiration that can be found in a single city,” says Miller. “It kept us alive.”
Harwood continues Miller’s thread in the same breath. “New York is expensive. You have a small apartment, limited time, resources, money, and everyone thinks that’s a problem, they see it as an obstacle—but it’s not,” he says. “Embrace those limitations and you’ll find something way more unique to yourself.”
Harwood has quickly forgotten his request for ice cream as Pata Paplean presents them with Thai noodle soup, which they chase with Dhaulagiri Kitchen’s Nepalese momos and signature selections from Arepa Lady. “I’m ready for a fucking nap,” he says. Then Tortas Neza come their way.
“I was too full for anything else, then we got the tacos—devoured it,” he says with a mouthful of pork and tortilla. “Tacos all day, every day.”
His bleached-blond hair gives off warranted surfer-vibes, which is to be expected from someone who grew up around waves. Miller taught him how to surf when he visited him in California around age 13. “It’s amazing to be out in Rockaway [and surf] then be so close to the city,” Harwood says. “Don’t tell anybody. Don’t tell anybody it’s so perfect.” He recognizes the irony.
Lewis del Mar isn’t alone when it comes to Rockaway’s artist infiltration. It’s been called a “mecca for musicians,” with artists like Patti Smith and Mac DeMarco in the neighborhood both before and after the destruction of Hurricane Sandy. The idealization of the area is something the band is conscious of promoting. “We have a lot of [multi-generational] friends that are from there and we respect the community, so we’re wary of who we share it with,” Harwood says of the media’s interest in seeing their recording and living headquarters.
The festival is filling up as it gets closer to time for the main acts and the boys are meeting up with their friends, who turn out to be the loyal fans in the front row during their set. The Meadows sold out for the weekend, with discounted tickets offered after rain canceled day two of Governors Ball, its sister festival, in June 2016. “They’re coming for Kanye,” Miller and Harwood agree. “It’s going to be fucking insane.”
Their insight only slightly predicted the madness that ensued when the headliner ended his set early after learning his wife, Kim Kardashian, had been held up at gunpoint in Paris. Lewis del Mar may not yet have the street cred to cause a colossal commotion after bolting offstage. But if their continued sold-out performances across the country prove anything, we’ll be seeing them way beyond the borough, but it’s always themselves they’ll find in Rockaway, Queens.
Lewis del Mar | @lewisdelmar
Meadows Music Festival
Austin City Limits Music Festival | @acltv
Rockaway Beach Surf Club | @rockawaybeachsurfclub
Tacoway Beach | @tacowaybeach
Joe DiStefano | @joedistefanoqns
La Esquina Del Camaron Mexicano
Pata Paplean | @patabarnyc
Dhaulagiri Kitchen
Arepa Lady | @arepalady
Tortas Neza
