‘Real connections are made when people see live music’: Tampa’s Symphonic Distribution stages Vibes Of the Bay on Saturday | Tampa

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Photo by Dave Decker

Milla Killa, who plays Crowbar in Ybor City, Florida on Sept. 28, 2024.

The Tampa Bay area has a heavy music scene and a strong community of independent musicians and artists, ranging from singer-songwriters to flamboyant rising indie-punk rock stars. From a wide variety of venues and festivals, Tampa Bay has long celebrated music and its culture.

Vibes by the Bay, builds on that sentiment and is one of the best celebrations of independent music. The festival, presented by Symphonic Distribution, brings together local musicians of all genres for one night in historic Ybor City every year. This weekend, Vibes celebrates its eighth celebration on Saturday, Sept. 28 at Crowbar, an iconic venue that’s hosted the event every year. There’s no cover for the show if you register in advance, and tickets are $10 at the door.

“There’s social media and all these streaming services that have allowed artists to have a larger audience, but we feel that the best place, the place where real connections are made, are when people see live music,” Janette Berrios, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Symphonic, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. She was one of the founding four members of Symphonic, alongside her husband, CEO, Jorge Brea and tagged that those connections and moments are important for artist development.

“When you see an artist in person, and you like them, you’re connecting with that musician on a way deeper level,” Berrios added.

This year marks Vibes second time back in person after taking a hiatus from 2020-2022 because of COVID-19. During that time, it Symphonic, which handles distribution and label services for its clients, hosted a virtual Vibes by the Bay, where it brought local artists and others from around the world to showcase music and to raise money for Crowbar and The National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), with the “#SaveOurStages” campaign.

NIVA is a collection of over 3,000 independent venues in 50 states and Washington D.C. that were shut down during COVID-19 and had no revenue. The collective pushed to have The Save Our Stages Act passed through Congress as part of the COVID-19 relief bill, which became a $16.25 billion grant program that delivered critical relief to venues, festivals, promoters and performing arts centers.

Whether it’s saving Ybor City’s iconic chickens or raising money for Crowbar itself, with every Vibes by the Bay, Symphonic chooses a charitable organization to support the proceeds made from the event. This year, it’s working with Feeding Tampa Bay, which focuses on fighting food insecurity and giving people access to basic health services, educational classes, job training, and connections to other nonprofits.

“We chose [Feeding Tampa Bay] because we’ve been seeing all these new developments that are coming about, and there’s a lot of gentrification. There’s a homelessness problem in Tampa that has increased a little bit more, so we felt that this was a cause [that we wanted to focus on this year],” said Berrios.

While the event is free to those who register beforehand, day-of tickets cost $10.
This year, over a dozen local artists, like Bangarang, Discord Theory, Geri X and others, will all perform from 4 p.m. to midnight.

Behind the scenes, Symphonic works to find the best and up-and-coming musicians and bands in the Tampa Bay area to reach out to. It aims to highlight genres and artists that best represent what the Tampa Bay music scene is at the moment— not focusing on any specific genre in particular.
Finally on the bill this year is rap-duo They Hate Change, which has spent the last tour years touring the world, alongside soul-crooner Guy Average, genre-jumping rock outfit Discord Theory, Best of the Bay-winning harp-drum duo Katara, plus sitarist and composer Hindol Deb, and more. DJs like Milla Killa, who opened for the Pangea Sound collective in the same room last January, will spin, too.

“From electronic music to rock to jazz, this year, to hip-hop. It’s a little bit of everything. In a way, it works out beautifully as we create the lineup to be a bit like a BPM so that it’ll flow,” explains Berrios.

Outside of just a range of genres, Symphonic also works to have diversity among its artists. They have a Gender Equity Pledge, where they work to find as much female representation as they do male. Outside of Vibes, Symphonic is an international, independent music distribution based in Tampa. Every year, it hosts a mentorship program titled “Women Empowered,” which aims to further women within the music industry.

The program has been going on for almost three years, and they’ve sent over 200 mentors and over 400 mentees. “We felt that it was a little bit of our responsibility to open up the doors for others because representation matters,” Berrios said.

Since the first Vibes on the Bay in 2015, the event has grown to its explosive celebration today. It’s evolved from just a small rock-focused event thrown by Symphonic to the genre-exploratory show it is now.

“We only do this event once a year, but I feel like because now the event has become known for its curation, people go because they know they’re going to be introduced to something different,” said Berrios.

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