For many of the SunFest performers, 2022 turned into RainFest between its first three days of April 28-30.
Yet hope was kept alive on day four. Following a country music-heavy opening night, plus additional headliners then attempting to deliver whining pop, forced glam, and frat-boy rock between the raindrops, the Austin, Texas-based soul group Black Pumas (www.theblackpumas.com) closed the fest’s southern LaBovick Law Group Stage on May 1 with a flourish.
Led by vocalist/guitarist Eric Burton and guitarist/producer Adrian Quesada, the Pumas provided an organic breath of fresh air akin to the one they’re currently delivering within a popular music industry obsessed with sampling, programming, overproduction, video, and auto-tuned vocals.
The headliners even brought better weather, which was also enjoyed by the West Palm Beach crowds attending sets by the Pumas’ south stage predecessors Topless in Tokyo (South Florida educator, author and tuba player Bill Muter’s horn-heavy 10-piece band) and Mihali (the Vermont-based reggae quartet featuring the vocals and metallic guitar undertones of Mihali Savoulidis).
By the time the Pumas’ seven-piece lineup (rounded out by keyboardist JaRon Marshall, bassist Brendan Bond, drummer Stephen Bidwell, and backing vocalists Angela Miller and Lauren Cervantes) strode on stage at 7:35 p.m., a sizable crowd had formed, which grew as the band kicked into the loping “Next To You.” Burton’s soulful, gospel-influenced vocals and impressive falsetto notes were attention-grabbing, except that he wasn’t visible — because he’d started the set out singing on a wireless microphone within the crowd before climbing on stage, a trend that continued through the show.
The singer’s background is steeped in church and musical theater, both of which surface often within his commanding presence, vocal phrasing, and octave-scaling attack that’s parts Al Green, Otis Redding, and David Bowie. When Burton relocated east from his native California to the Austin area several years ago, the Texas-born Quesada (already a Grammy winner with the band Grupo Fantasma) knew he’d struck gold with a front man for his latest R&B, soul, and funk foundation. The Pumas released their self-titled debut album in 2019, which became a 2020 Grammy nominee before the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily slowed their roll.
In Marshall, Bond and Bidwell, Quesada’s instrumental foundation is rock-solid (with Bond especially providing impactful bass lines and accents), but the enigmatic Burton is the key. The vocalist added his own hollow-bodied guitar parts to more blues and rock-influenced funk tracks like “Touch the Sky,” and made a few more crowd-pleasing trips into the growing audience as the eventual 70-minute set progressed.
“Can we get to know you a little better?” Burton asked. “Repeat after me.” He then led the growing throng in call-and-response chants to introduce another debut album favorite, “Know You Better.” The piece featured dramatic builds and decrescendos, and provided the opportunity for Miller and Cervantes — both singers in spot-on tandem with Burton all night, notably here and on the late “Mrs. Postman” — to each get solo improvised vocal spotlights.
Seventy minutes passed all too quickly, leading to solos by Marshall and Quesada on another oft-requested debut album cut, the closing “Colors.” There would be no encore because SunFest’s fireworks finale was due to start offshore, but the festival was wise not to have another act follow the Pumas, a mix of soul, R&B, rock, funk and psychedelia that makes it perhaps the world’s most dangerous opening act since equally theatrical Georgia-spawned funk-rockers Mother’s Finest from the mid-to-late 1970s.
With Burton at the pulpit, the Black Pumas certainly got more than a singular amen in delivering an impactful Sunday soul sermon to close SunFest 2022.