bluegrass festival

Been at the Joe Val Bluegrass Festival all weekend, so I guess a short rundown of sorts is in order. Now I'd never been to one of these here bluegrass festivals before, so I didn't know exactly what to expect. I like bluegrass but I don't actually listen to it much or follow it, so this whole thing was a first for me. I was quite surprised at how good this one was though. It also had a lot of big-time bands, which I didn't expect for a New England bluegrass show. Then again, why would anyone really expect to see a bluegrass show in New England of all places to begin with? So I guess that alone would have been surprising enough.

There was a lot going on, but I spent almost all of my time at the main stage watching the bands--about 2.5 days worth of all bluegrass music, all the time. (Literally, the informal picking starts in the hotel Thursday night and runs all day and all night for the festival, and I'm sure there are some stragglers still there now, so if one was staying in the hotel he could hear bluegrass picking at any hour day or night.) Now THAT'S what I'm talkin' about! I suppose an unfortunate side is that I didn't take any steps to move from being an aspiring mandolin player to an actual mandolin player, despite having owned a mandolin for a few years now. But my goal now is to finally dedicate enough time to it to return next year knowing enough to at least attempt to play some stuff and maybe even join a picking circle or something...or just stick to watching others. So I'll have to keep my report to the bands. So if you don't care about bluegrass, now's a great time to stop reading. Actually, if that's the case, why'd you wander over in the first place? Anyway...

If instrumental bluegrass is your thing, do whatever you have to do to see Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper if they ever do a show within several hundred miles or so of where you live. They're that good. These guys blew me away and are easily the best bluegrass band I've ever heard. They're the two-time defending IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year, and it's not hard to see why. The CD I bought is actually a slight letdown since I saw them in concert first--they include a lot more solos and instrumentals live. But I'm sure I'll get a chance to see this band again sometime, hopefully soon.

The Dry Branch Fire Squad put on a couple of great performances as well. They're more "normal" bluegrass, for lack of a better way to put it. You know, what a casual listener like myself might go to a bluegrass show figuring to hear. Their show is great though, with plenty of humor and storytelling mixed in. They were the most entertaining band of the bunch, if not the most hard-hitting.

Others that were good enough to get me to buy a CD were the Steep Canyon Rangers and NewFound Road. The Rangers are more contemporary I'd say, relative newcomers to mainstream bluegrass but quickly making a name for themselves. NewFound Road has been around for a few years but has recently started adding in some secular stuff to their previously all-gospel set. I like them a lot and they definitely have a strong Christian bent. Another great one that I would have bought a CD for had I not run out of cash is Dailey & Vincent. They're arguably the premier band playing these days in the bluegrass genre, having recently taken home a slew of honors at the IBMA Awards. They're another gospel-focused group, and they even did some evangelism at the show. (That took some guts to do, given they were in the greater Boston area. Shows they aren't afraid to alienate a few fans.) They're a fun concert too, with some humor thrown in.

One funny thing about this festival, and I suspect all such bluegrass festivals, is that since the bands play a lot of older, common tunes in addition to their own stuff, you end up hearing some of the same songs more than once. I know I heard "Rovin' Gambler" at least three times. I've memorized the story of the song now and I only heard it for the first time two days ago! There was one about a ship captain or something that kept coming up, but I didn't remember it as well. It's cool though, because no two bands do the same tune exactly the same--different instrumentals, varying harmony vocals, whatever.

Overall, it was a great weekend and well worth the effort and headache (read: driving on the MassPike) it took to get there each of the three days. Most of the bands were great and I'm not doing them justice by not mentioning them here. One excuse is I felt groggy and out of it all day today--I may be coming down with a cold--so I just couldn't enjoy the music as much. I didn't buy any CDs today, but the bands were good and I figure I'll end up with a few more CDs from some or all of them at some point. A few of the bands were more old country than bluegrass really--not that that's bad, but I don't like it as much and wasn't as excited to hear them. But my focus needs to be on learning mandolin, or guitar or some kind of instrument at least, so next year it'll be that much better for me.