Considering the pummeling KFOG has taken in the last few weeks over its morning show catastrophe, perhaps it sees the new Harmony By The Bay Festival as a way to win back some goodwill. The new music event on September 29 at Shoreline will try to fill the void left by the cancellation—after 33 straight years—of Santa Rosa’s Harmony Festival, and is a joint venture between Harmony’s organizers, KFOG and Live Nation. Performers will include The Shins, Tegan and Sara, Kimbra, Alison Krauss & Union Station, Beats Antique, Matisyahu and many more.

In March, organizers of the annual three-day Santa Rosa music festival announced it would not be returning to the Sonoma County Fairgrounds this summer due to financial trouble. However, they left open the possibility the festival would return as early as next year, and wrote in a statement: “Please trust that we have spent many months creatively exploring dozens of promising options in the hopes that we could keep this magical event alive this year. We know this news is a great disappointment to the entire Harmony team and the community at large, and we share your feelings of disappointment. We ask that we work together to move beyond this stage, toward hope and optimism for future Harmony Festivals.”

Apparently, the future is now. This one-day, South Bay version features the same eclectic mix of genres and cultures in its line-up, from the bluegrass of Krauss to reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, with a lot of indie rock in between. Organizers promise “Two stages of diverse music, creative food, crafts, sustainability education, shopping and good vibes.”

Tickets go on sale Friday, June 29, at 10am.

Confirmed Performers:
The Shins
Tegan and Sara
Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas
Beats Antique
Matisyahu
Jimmy Cliff
Kimbra
More TBA
The Dirty Heads, The Givers

With her debut album Vows a certified pop-culture phenomenon, New Zealand singer-songwriter Kimbra has announced her first headlining U.S. tour, to launch this fall. After supporting Foster the People around the U.S. and Canada through July, she’ll pick back up with her own tour on September 25, stopping at Shoreline Amphitheare in Mountain View on September 29.

Though Vows has been out in New Zealand and Australia since last summer, the futuro-soul singer (full name: Kimbra Lee Johnson) went back into an L.A. studio to record new tracks for the U.S. release, which hit stores last month. One of the new tracks, “Warrior” features Mark Foster of Foster the People, and A-Trak.

The dates for her fall tour are:

Sept 25 – Commodore Ballroom – Vancouver, BC
Sept 26 – Showbox @ the Market – Seattle, WA
Sept 27 – Wonder Ballroom – Portland, OR
Sept 29 – Shoreline Amphitheatre – Mountain View, CA
Sept 30 – Majestic Ventura Theater – Ventura, CA
Oct 03 – Fonda Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
Oct 05 – House of Blues – San Diego, CA
Oct 09 – The Depot – Salt Lake City, UT
Oct 10 – Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO
Oct 12 – Verizon Theatre – Grand Prairie, TX
Oct 14 – Austin City Limits – Austin, TX
Oct 16 – Varsity Theater – Minneapolis, MN
Oct 17 – Metro – Chicago, IL
Oct 20 – Webster Hall – New York, NY
Oct 21 – Theater of the Living Arts -Philadelphia, PA
Oct 23 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
Oct 24 – Royale Nightclub – Boston, MA
Oct 26 – Corona Theatre – Montreal, QC
Oct 27 – Danforth Music Hall -Toronto, ON

Click here to view the embedded video.

I won’t mince words: Kimbra’s debut album “Vows” is profoundly boring, though it shows potential. The twenty-two-year old jazz songstress from New Zealand emerged victorious in her duet with Gotye on “Somebody That I Used to Know.” While that song’s expiration date was many moons ago, there’s a chance Kimbra’s for now tolerable, inoffensive whimsy will take risks.

The album is a mix of jazz, lounge, soul, r&b and what can we call it – indie dance? – content, contained. Unfortunate because we wanted her to come away with a success all her own. We expected it. But expectations are unwise.

Remember: she was born in 1990. That she covers Nina Simone’s “Plain Gold Ring” and is auditioning as the kind of singer whose eccentricity is supported by boisterous range and talent calls for minor celebration. That she does it desperately and personality-free, so readymade to fit a commercial for online dating or the elevator at a W Hotel is, given her potential, infuriating. How can music that attempts to be larger-than-life also be so boring?

I think of someone like Feist, who’s easy to love for many of the same reasons, and secures her indie darling status. Every song a sedate lullaby, a pleasant fail-safe. Her voice can be too tranquil, skipping its way into Sesame Streets, shilling iPhones, begging your mom to turn up the volume and exclaim, “oh, I just love this tune!” Which is perfect, should you require a way to fill dead air.

Speaking of mommy jams, Kimbra does have a funky affinity with Melanie, the 60s folk singer famous for “Brand New Key” (used in an ad for a printer – the metric for success in this category: hawking technology) and “Lay Down Candles,” inspired by a performance at Woodstock. Like hers, Kimbra’s voice has a quivering vibrato which can scare and embarrass you a little, but one that could become singular and proud. She does well drawing deep from within, like Adele, another seventies-inspired siren.

Or Prince? That’s what her label wants you to think. On “Home,” that comparison can live. It’s a scaled down take, just as simmering and carefully scripted as “Sign ‘O’ the Times” or “Purple Rain” is. The problem is she’s trying out too many things here. The album is inconsistent, and if she was as weird as her voice suggests, she should own it. That’s how Prince succeeded.

Pop could always use more of the blues, but Kimbra’s phonemic awareness, warping syllables all out of shape, is what keeps her music compelling. She was fantastic on “Someone That I Used to Know,” a brusque, convincing and even reasonable one-act of a performance, proof that if “Vows” is all over the place, it can move – anxiously.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves: 1990, remember? Kimbra’s good, but with time, foreseeably excellent.