TVD Live Shots: Extra Innings Festival at Tempe Beach Park, 2/28

TEMPE, AZ | For only the second year, Extra Innings Music Festival followed the spring training baseball inspired weekend, Innings Festival. Celebrating the combined love of baseball and music, Innings Festival has been held in Tempe, AZ since 2018. Just last year, they added a second weekend.

Spring training for Major League Baseball starts the same weekend as Innings Festival and is in full swing—literally—by the second weekend for Extra Innings Festival. Just as the name implies, it’s just like extra innings of a baseball game. It follows the same setup and features as the first weekend, just extra excitement.

As a result of desert weather, half of Major League Baseball teams train here in the spring, while the other half train in Florida. The weather is reason enough to visit Arizona in February, but now fans are treated to two different music festivals. While Innings typically rolls out a more rock ‘n’ roll inspired lineup, Extra Innings features a more Country and Americana lineup. This weekend especially featured some new faces in the music scene while capping off the days with legends of the game.

The festival grounds are held in Tempe Beach Park that Tempe Town Lake runs alongside. The grounds feature two stages that are held on opposite sides. Right beneath Tempe Bridge sits Home Plate. Home Plate is almost designed like a baseball diamond with refreshments lining the left side and bleacher seating lining the right hand side.

In the middle of the grounds there is an entire baseball section and near the stage there are also batting cages and a game to clock how fast you can pitch. The way the festival operates is that only one band plays at a time on alternates stages. This way fans can either secure a great spot for one artist or walk in between stages and get the best of both worlds.

Day one we were impressed with just about everyone and everything, however there were a few standouts. The 2:45 time slot at Home Plate from the hometown kid, Evan Honer was everything we had hoped it would be. He ran onto the stage with a full roundoff backflip, and the fans learned very quickly Evan is a former Division One athlete. He kicked off his set, literally, with a new tune he recently released, “Everything I Wanted.”

We sat down with Evan after his set to discuss his journey. He graduated college in 2023 and has practically been touring since he walked across the stage. He told us that being an athlete on the diving team in college and being an artist on stage have some similarities—everyone is watching you perform, and mentally doing the dive/song the best way possible. Just like being on a team, he’s extremely grateful to tour with some of his best friends in the band.

Honer brought out another rising name, Wyatt Flores for a song during his set highlighting the relationships he has made on his journey. He told us about some of the challenges he has had of touring too—finding time to create new music and even his first performance at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. He said he has been really thinking about finding a balance with recording new music and writing on the road while still bringing the energy to a performance night in and night out.

Evan said he is really excited to share his new music and continue to develop his older music as time goes on as he continues to perform. The biggest thing for him as an artist is advancing on his own timeline and running his own race. We originally covered Evan at a music festival in the fall of 2023, and we were very excited to sit down with him again after some time. We are now even more excited to see what’s next for this young, promising star.

As the day progressed we got to see Wyatt Flores, the young Okloahoma native take the stage. He plays with a ton of energy and writes straight from the heart. This said, any country music fan who took in day one’s lineup knows who the highlight of the day was: Brandon Coleman and The Red Clay Strays.

They are here to prove they are much are more than just “Wondering Why.” While a tremendous tune, and largely what has propelled their fame, there is so much more to them as a group. I am not the first writer to draw comparisons between Brandon to Elvis or Johnny Cash, but when you see he and the band play live, it is undeniable. Brandon is a generational talent, and RCS are one of a kind. They are a blast from the past with a modern twist. Blown away doesn’t quite do their set justice, and all I can say is I will be there the next time they are in my city. They will be headlining festivals soon, and have a very bright future.

While I said RCS was the highlight of the day, that is not to discredit The Lumineers. I would argue The Lumineers are one of the most legendary bands to come out of the early two-thousands. They create music that is so unique to them—no one else can replicate it. Their blend of folk, rock, soul and everything in between is poetry in motion. They have not missed a beat since they started, and their new album is as good as ever. The Lumineers more than deserve headlining spots at music festivals and will be playing arenas around the country through the fall. Special is an understatement.

EVAN HONER