On the Tuesday after Memorial Day Weekend, Guest of a Guest ran a headline that seemed to have been ripped right from the mouths of countless New Yorkers—Literally Everyone Was at The Surf Lodge This Weekend. And indeed, socialites like rich kid of Beverly Hills EJ Johnson, literal princess Olympia of Greece and more posed for the society blog’s lenses and sipped Grey Goose Le Grand Fizz cocktails while ringing in the de facto first weekend of summer at the Montauk party spot-meets-hotel.
Grey Goose at the Surf Lodge
The long weekend also marked the start of Surf Lodge’s tenth annual summer concert series, a musical tradition that, like the rest of Montauk, has exploded in recent years. According to owner Jayma Cardoso, some of the “surf staples” on this year’s lineup—like singer-songwriter Donavon Frankenreiter—have been taking the property’s small Fort Pond-adjacent stage since Surf Lodge’s inception in 2008. But this year’s lineup also includes some seriously heavy hitters like Lupe Fiacso (July 16), Grammy-nominee Anderson .Paak (July 30) and ZZ Ward (August 12).
With the hot spot’s second big weekend of summer upon us, DuJour caught up with Cardoso about her favorite musical memories from the past decade.
Over the past ten seasons, which Surf Lodge concert was your favorite?
I think Willie Nelson. Just because it took me four years to finally get him. We had his son perform and I think everybody else on his label perform before his manager would allow Willie. It was incredible. And Jimmy Buffet jumped in and performed with him. I feel like he’s so true to Montauk. It was hard to top that. We’ve had really great bands that are super big like The Flaming Lips and The Kills. But I also have to talk about those smaller bands who are now really big. Leon Bridges performed for us three years ago, and he’s now opening up major concert halls and nominated for a Grammy. There are so many people—like Gary Clark [also].
The Surf Lodge
Image by Emily Winiker
Is it always important for you to highlight new, up-and-coming bands?
For sure, it’s always been part of our series to get the young up-and-comers who are on the cusp. It’s funny because I just tried to book Leon Bridges again this year, and they were like, “I think he has one date available.”
The Surf Lodge
Image by Emily Winiker
What are you looking forward to for this summer?
Music wise, Ben Harper. Arts wise, we’re working with this incredible artist Richard Phillips. He’s curating this series for us with some really amazing emerging artists. Our first one was over Memorial Day weekend. We actually asked Richard himself to do a show with us and he was like, “Well, I think I have a different idea for you guys. I think I’ll curate your entire series this summer with people that you may not know yet but they are incredibly talented and doing things that are catching my eye.” Sometimes you just have one idea in mind and then organically it just goes a different direction. I think that for me has been the biggest surprise for the summer so far. I’m really excited about that.
This Fourth of July weekend, catch Rubblebucket on Friday at 6pm, Bob Moses on Saturday at 6pm and Bully on Sunday at 6pm at Surf Lodge. For the full summer concert series lineup, head to surflodge.com.
Main image by: Emily Winiker
