Madness. Pure, madness. That was Saturday night, but we'll get there in a bit. Saturday day was filled with intimate sessions with master musicians, strange weather, and great bands.
I started the day up at the Main Stage, seeing the first set of the day by Rocking Acoustic Circus (working on an artist spotlight for them now), before moving down to see Brian Sutton at the Master Stage, playing some of the most incredible acoustic guitar I've ever heard. After his set I interviewed Bill Keith (inventor of melodic banjo playing) about his long career in the music industry and what he's doing now (watch for that interview here and at Performer soon). When we finished our interview I ran over to the Dance Tent to catch a little bit of Crooked Still, which fortunately put me beneath covering when a large rainstorm passed over and dumped buckets on Grey Fox for about five minutes before the sky cleared up innocently and pretended nothing had happened. Now it was the later part of the afternoon, and seeing as the sun was back in full force I quickly sojourned to the creek to relax and freshen up a bit. As I was resting in the deepest part (I was sitting with my head out of the water) a group of campers in their late 20's came down and began throwing rocks at other rocks, talked about being drunk for most of the festival, and laughing about it all. I smiled smugly and was about to experience a smug feeling of smug superiority when I heard someone upstream say "Hey, is that Garrett?" I turned and saw Alex and the band Chasing Blue building a miniature damn about 60 feet. Forgetting my smugness for a second, I went to help build their dam, make damn dam jokes, throw rocks at other rocks, and laugh about it all.
Sam Bush was one of the Big names playing this festival, and the fact that he did a workshop on the Master Stage is really noteworthy. The fact that he was amiable, genuine, and led the crowd in a rousing mandolin cover of Bob Marley's 'One Love' didn't lose him any points either. Afterwords, I noticed he stuck around to shake hands, sign things, and have his picture taken with crowd of fans who were at once elated and blown away to meet this star. Me? I'd never heard of the dude, so I wondered off to find something to eat.
This is where the Madness starts (that's Madness, capital M). The Tim O'brien began playing at 8 45, and his set was awesome. Tim O'brien is a master mandolinist and soulful singer. His songs range from humorous to touching, especially the songs he had written about his father, who passed away last October. As he was playing storm clouds gathered to the North, and heat lightning could be seen among the crowds. The tricky part was that all the lightning took place out of sight of the performers, so they occasionally mistook the "oh"'s and "ah"s coming from the crowd as laughter at their stage banter instead of the sound a huge mass of people makes when they see a 300 foot long lightning bolt emit no sound.
Tim O'brien and his band finished their set to wild applause, played a quick encore and then cleared the stage for the Sam Bush Band. If this festival had a headliner, this was it, and people waited anxiously for 'the King of New Grass". As the band set up, the storm worsened in the background and grew steadily closer, until it was nearly directly over us. This show wasn't going to be very long, but it would be something to remember. As the band began playing lighting flashed continuously behind the stage, punctuating builds and breaks with the most spectacular light show in the world. The wind began to pick up, billowing the giant 'Grey Fox' poster behind the band and gave them the appearance of warrior musicians, playing with and against all the forces of Mother Nature. Unfortunately, Mother Nature herself wanted to do a bit of playing, and after the fourth song or so began giving all of us a cold, perfunctory shower. Actually, it wasn't so much a shower as it was being sprayed with a fire hose. As the stage crew covered the performance area with tarps and the audience scrambled for cover, I grabbed one of the empty folding chairs beside me and made an impromptu umbrella out it. It worked decently well, until I realized that the rain wasn't going to stop anytime soon and that water was starting to soak through it's canvas hied. Running to one of the crowded festival tents, I stood and watched the violent and beautiful display of power happening in the sky around us as drunken, middle aged festival goers complained and got high.
The rain lessened up, but enough to allow Sam Bush to retake the Main Stage, so the next logical step was to go to the only covered stage still operating, the Dance Tent. More Madness. The place was packed with people dancing, drinking, and reveling in general as the band egged it all on. The Wilders were there to party. The guitarist wore a black cowboy hat and sunglasses and had already broken a string when I arrived. After several songs he broke another, looked down at his guitar, and remarked, "Well, looks like I'm down to four strings, and you know what they say when you're playing with four strings." He paused, "Fuck you" and immediately went into the next song. Everyone who stayed late enough to party with The Wilders got an extra surprise when Sam Bush and Tim O'brien arrived with their entourage to join the already raucous hosts. Madness.
When the dance tent finally died down I met up with Alex and Chasing Blue again. He was getting his Resonator Guitar out of his truck when I saw him, and he told me the rain was just about over. Just then, it started pouring again, and we ran over to the large tent where Maggie, Susie, Mike, Trent, and Chad were holed up from the elements. Finding the tent decently waterproof, everyone decided that playing some fast paced Bluegrass would be a fine idea. I can honestly say it was one of the most epic things I have ever seen. The storm billowed the tent back and forth as lighting and thunder roared all around us. I was at the edge of the tent, and could feel the rain (or possibly hail) as it struck our synthetic home. Susie and Mike sang songs of death, drinking and sorrow, their voices belting out against the storm, daring it to push us harder. There was no light but that of the lightning, only silhouettes punctuated electric white by the flashbulb of the Gods. At this moment, life made sense. The storm and band roared at each other, and I smiled.
The Morning After...
Rock Out...for Cows!
