GSB 2025: Day 1 Live Blog
Live Blog By Jace DeMarco
With additional reporting by Jesse Gaynor
Taking Back Sunday Pictures by Fernando Gomez
10 PM
Day one of the Great South Bay Music Festival closes with Taking Back Sunday performing on the Main Stage. We’ll be back tomorrow with more coverage of the music festival.
8:20 PM
The sun is going down as the lights come up on the Five Towns College Stage. Nonstop to Cairo has the last performance of the night on the stage.
7:00 PM
Flycatcher wrapped up the third performance of the night on the Five Towns College Stage. Led by Greg Pease, they’re a rock band that plays anthemic alt-rock in the vein of 90s bands like the Smashing Pumpkins and Hum.
During the performance, Pease announced that Flycatcher is releasing an album, and ended the set with two of the songs from it. Guitarist Justin VanNiekerk tells us, “I think people are gonna like everything that comes out, and hopefully [we’ll] just keep it going, and more and more people like it as much as we do.”
Our last group to take the FTC Stage is Nonstop to Cairo at 8:15 PM.
6:00 PM
The crowd’s much larger than it was just a few hours ago… Maybe it’s because Gym Class Heroes is onstage right now?
Travie McCoy’s currently amping up this huge audience and putting on quite the show with his band as they play favorites like Cupid’s Chokehold, Billionaire, and Stereo Hearts.
For those who don’t know: McCoy and former drummer Matt McGinley met in their high school gym class, hence the name Gym Class Heroes.
5:00 PM
Some of our H.S. Summer Scholars had a chance to come to the festival … those taking broadcasting and social media got to create content, be interviewed on the FTC Sound Stream and get first-hand experience studying the business of music festivals.
The music has finally begun. These People are beginning their set on the Five Towns College Stage with their song “Forces at Work.”
TJ Penzone, Fred Trumpy, and Paul Meuvada are currently taking us on a rocking musical adventure tinged with alternative and indie undertones.
Soundcheck at the FTC Stage: Our Five Towns audio students are currently setting things up for our first FTC Stage performer, These People.
2:30 PM
You can’t have a festival without merch to remember the occasion.
The Great South Bay Music Festival’s official merch booth features items from graphic t-shirts to long sleeve shirts to hats and tote bags.
2:00 PM
1:30 PM
1:15 PM
Many people from all over Long Island come here for the music. However, there’s much more to see than just the performances. There’s a lot of great food.
Eric Rifkin from Bobbieque is a food vendor serving some incredible BBQ food. Rifkin says, “We’re doing giant smoked turkey legs, we’re doing slow roasted and smoked pulled pork sandwiches, and we’re doing Mac and cheese topped with pulled pork.”
They’ve been a part of the festival since the year it began 19 years ago.
12:15 PM
It’s the day we’ve been looking forward to all year– the start of the Great South Bay Music Festival at Shorefront Park in Patchogue! The current weather is 86°F and breezy, and our Five Towns crew is getting everything ready to deliver a spectacular production at the FTC Bandshell.
The air is full of excitement, and our equipment room manager Nicole Monteleone feels it too, saying “It’s so much fun to be here and [listen to] all the music happening. It’s awesome.”
