After Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday night and left thousands without power, Andres Hernandez wasn’t sure if Gainesville Indie Night would happen. But by 11 p.m. Friday, he and his alternative indie rock band Rohna took the stage at The Wooly, performing to a crowd of more than 100 people.
Hernandez, a 26-year-old bassist, performed for his third time at Gainesville Indie Night, a themed event that aims to highlight local indie bands and draw in new audiences.
“We kind of thought that a cool way to at least bring the indie scene together would be to create a themed night,” Hernandez said.
The Sept. 27 show was hosted at Indie Night’s new location, The Wooly, after High Dive’s closure in May. Four bands performed throughout the night, including Buboy, Twin Suns, Rohna and Sigs Inside. Entry was $13 in advance and $15 at the door, with merchandise for each of the bands available at the venue.
Despite the hurricane, Hernandez said the show was able to continue as scheduled because there were no damages to the venue.
“For the most part, Gainesville seemed like it was okay despite it being a pretty rough hurricane,” he said. “But overall, we had a lot to figure out this morning, but we made the ultimate decision to go for it.”
Hernandez created Indie Night in Tampa in 2021 after watching how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the live music scene. He took inspiration from other themed nights in the Tampa area and considered Indie Night a way to unite bands during a challenging time.
Having hosted events in cities across Florida, from Jacksonville to Miami, Hernandez appreciates the state’s diverse indie music scene. While “indie” is the umbrella term that unites the bands, Hernandez said, each band has its own take on the genre.
“When we've gone out of state, a lot of the indie bands will sound very similar, which is cool,” he said. “But here it's so diverse. Every band sounds unique while still being under that umbrella … it's one of those music scenes that no one's afraid to dance around, just have a good time.”
Hernandez and his childhood friends Austin Burdi, Luca Canalungo and Nick Rovello founded Rohna in 2019 and have been playing together since.
The band’s youngest player, 24-year-old drummer Canalungo, said playing together has allowed the band to build a comfortable work dynamic.
“Once you can get into that mindset of just, ‘Things are going smoothly, we're doing what we always do,’ it's like you can just focus on the fun part of it and giving your energy to the crowd,” Canalungo said.
The crowd reciprocated Rohna’s energy Friday night as they turned on their phones’ flashlights and lifted crowd surfers above their heads at the band’s request.
The audience responded by dancing and cheering for all the performers throughout the night, including 19-year-old local indie-pop artist Buboy. Buboy encouraged audience members to imitate popcorn by crouching low and jumping during his single, “Movie Star.”
Sigs Inside, an indie rock band, performed the night’s final set. Evan Fleischer, a 20-year-old UF public relations junior and Sigs Inside’s guitarist, said he wasn’t sure if the hurricane would cancel Indie Night, but the crowd’s enthusiasm allowed the band to recognize the Gainesville indie music community’s supportive nature.
“Just having that energy made the show and us playing just feel so much better and feel like there's such a good community,” he said.
Twin Suns, a five-person band that has performed with Rohna for two years, describes its style as “surfadelic” and performed its hit single “The Hermit” at the event.
Despite its members living in different cities in Florida, the band had a close-knit community of family and friends in attendance Friday night.
Janet Powell, the 54-year-old mother of Twin Suns’ bassist John Powell, helped sell the band’s merchandise during the show. She tries to support the band in any way she can, she said.
“I want him to live his dream … and he works really, really hard, and I'm so proud,” Powell said.
Hernandez understands bands bring in their fans, friends and family, and venues bring in locals, but he hopes events like Gainesville Indie Night give people who are unfamiliar with the indie music scene a chance to see it up close.
“I hope they just make some good memories, meet some new people, discover their new favorite band [and] just kind of have it be an exposure to the local scene.”
Indie Night will also take place in Tampa and Orlando in December.
Contact Juliana DeFilippo at jdefillipo@alligator.org. Follow her on X @JulianaDeF58101.
Juliana DeFilippo is a freshman journalism major and General Assignment reporter for The Avenue. In her free time, she loves to read and work on crossword puzzles.
