All tagged Festival Review
There is a tendency at multi-venue music festivals like Americanafest to overthink the line-up card. You race from one venue to another to try to create the perfectly curated live music experience from the dozens of great acts playing all over town, only to stand in the back or miss half the acts you wanted to see. I’m more of a pick-a-venue-and-settle-in guy, and the Day One evening we had at 3rd and Lindsley is one reason why.
You could get a pretty good taste of the breadth and depth of Americana music by hopping around the three stages of the Cannery Hall complex in Nashville on Friday night of AmericanaFest.
There, you’d find the dean of Americana, Jim Lauderdale, resplendent in a glittery purple suit. You’d find the soulful afropop-folk of Ugandan immigrant Jon Muq and the swaggering, high-octane country rock of Jason Scott and the High Heat. You’d hear the fiddle forward country-with-an-edge of Kelsey Waldon and the funk-soul-gospel of the McCrary Sisters. You’d find the thrilling vocal runs of R&B singer Major and the muscular soul of Amythyst Kiah.
I think they might have let me into the artists’ party by mistake at the 30A Songwriters Festival.
I wandered to the back bar of AJ’s Grayton Beach on opening night to check if anyone was performing there. Attendants at the door asked me if I wanted the free drink tickets. Momentarily confused but also not a fool, I said, “why, yes, thank you” and sauntered in.
The room was abuzz with musicians catching up with each other. I greeted a couple and wandered the room, soaking in the atmosphere and catching bits of conversation. These festivals are a treat for artists. So often touring alone, a fest allows them to chill and catch up with friends.
There’s a relaxed vibe throughout the 30A Songwriters Festival. It’s held every year over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend in the Florida panhandle at about 30 venues along 20 miles of Highway 30A. Some 175 performers settle in for the weekend, playing multiple sets. You see them in coffee shops, walking along the beach or attending shows, and they’re often open to a chat or photo.
In Clarksdale,Mississippi, birthplace of the Delta Blues and once home to music legends including Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson, Jason Eady hosted an intimate music weekend to culminate the tour for his latest album Mississippi. Held the second weekend in November, the inaugural Way Down in Mississippi Weekend featured music from Eady and those that had a part in the making of the album: Adam Hood, his only co-writer on the album; Courtney Patton and Kelly Mickwee, who sang harmonies on the album, and Midnight River Choir, who toured the album with him. The first two days, festival attendees stayed at the historic Shack Up Inn, where restored sharecropper shacks make up the sleeping quarters and the original cotton gin, the lobby and bar area. Rustic is the word that comes to mind – but the authenticity and nostalgic charm made up for any lack of luxury.
My memory does not serve me when trying to determine how many artists I saw at last year’s festival, but this year definitely felt like more. My roster for this year checked in at nearly 60 sets. Not all sets were witnessed from start to finish and many were short sets at industry parties. Nonetheless, with a lineup of this magnitude, there were a massive number of artists I made a point to see.
Four miles north of Pryor, Oklahoma, along Hwy 69 on the fabled Rocklahoma festival grounds, is the premier Red Dirt, Country and Americana music and camping festival known as Born & Raised. In only its third year of production, the line-up continues to dazzle with top names in the genres. Each year, the dates have moved around a little in the month of September with this year’s festivities running September 13-16. The week provided beautiful weather – dry and mostly sunny the entire time. It was even a bit cooler than I remember from my past attendance which was most welcoming.
Lawd a-mighty – AmericanaFest is a giant buffet of good music. Every year, I duck under the sneeze guard and shovel great, heaping handfuls of it in my face.
Three of us from The Amp attended AmericanaFest 2023. Here are some of my favorite moments – we’ll post Melissa’s and Jolene’s soon.
3rd and Lindsley was a magical place to be Wednesday night. Just 90 minutes after Jessi Colter introduced Margo Price during the Americana Honors & Awards at the Ryman Auditorium, Price sat in on Colter’s triumphant set. (Up for three major awards, Price struck out: “I lost three times, but Bonnie Raitt told me I’m cool, so that’s all right.”)
Together they sang “Fine Wine,” a track from Colter’s new album, “Standing on the Edge of Forever,” which is coming out Oct. 27. “It’s about missing someone,” Colter said, noting husband Waylon Jennings “is 20 years gone.”
The Mile of Music is a gem of a festival hidden in plain sight in Appleton, Wisconsin. It’s astonishingly good, especially considering the ticket price: free.
Now in its 10th year, the Mile of Music features 200 performers over four days at 40 venues along a mile of the main drag in Appleton, a city of 75,000 about 90 minutes north of Milwaukee. Artists play multiple times, resulting in some 700 sets.
A music fan who’s willing to listen to almost any kind of music, and who can appreciate it for what it is – that person is said to have “big ears.” Hence the name of the Big Ears music festival, the gathering in downtown Knoxville every spring known as the most eclectic music festival in the world.
The Eagles, meanwhile, were in town on Saturday, playing Hotel California in its entirety and a set of greatest hits. No disrespect to the Eagles or their fans (I’m one too), but you don’t need big ears for Life in the Fast Lane.
Big Ears is an exceedingly eclectic festival. Most festivals stick to one genre, maybe two. Big Ears says, “Genre? LOL. How about ALL of them?”
This is the 10th year of Big Ears, drawing more than 20,000 fans March 30 to April 2 to see 100-plus acts at venues concentrated in Knoxville’s beautiful, artsy downtown. Park once and you can walk to all the venues.
Big Ears is a choose-your-own-adventure kind of festival. Fest-goers can pick a genre and wallow in it – jazz, world beat, Americana, folk, classical, ambient country (did you know there’s such a thing as ambient country?) – or wander a crooked route among them.
Deep in the hills of Appalachia lies a little town on the Kentucky/Tennessee border that bears the name Pineville. At first look you might wonder what’s so special about Pineville? Or what is special about Bell County in general? Well, let me be the one to tell you. Laurel Cove Music Festival, that’s what. This is one of the greatest venues in the great state of Kentucky. Nobody sets the stage more beautifully and no other venue I have yet visited has had the incredible seating arrangements that the cove offers. Just before the main stage is a beautiful little pond that stretches across the entirety of the stage separating fans from pickers and creating some great photo opportunities of musicians and announcers' reflections in the water. While there, I heard someone refer to this spot as “the Red Rocks of Appalachia” and that has been how I mostly describe it when speaking in person. Among the many great venues and festivals in the Bluegrass state, this one stands out for its incredible display of staging and the lineup. Driving to Pineville was quite a treat as well. My wife and I were lucky enough to stay with some friends at a cabin up the hill from the festival grounds and if you are able to drive over the mountain at Pine Mountain State Park, you absolutely should. There are breath-taking views that will nicely accompany the sounds that you may find at Laurel Cove Music Festival.
Off the beaten path in Monticello, Kentucky is where this story begins at a little place called Hidden Ridge. What transpired were two incredible nights filled with music, love, and all around good vibes. I was lucky enough to be camped out just a short stretch away from the stage alongside my good friends. A few of them were Austin Shuck, from WhatTheShuck Podcast, the wonderful band members from one of my favorite bands, Brother Smith and of course, nearly every band’s drummer Zach Martin. Martin definitely deserves an honorable mention for how many songs he knows and absolutely murders. It was a beautiful weekend on the hill, camped in a wonderful, shady spot listening to some of the greatest acts the region has to offer.
It’s no secret that one of the best festivals to feature Americana and country music happens every September in the great state of Oklahoma. If you thought last year’s inaugural Born & Raised was good, then year two has set the bar even higher. This year’s lineup featured an even wider range of amazing artists, with the perfect blend of well-established artists and those that are still considered up and coming. A main wish of mine last year was more females to be added to the bill, so one of the best parts of the lineup announcement was seeing so many talented females included for the second year. Equal representation on the bill is always the goal, but compared to other festivals in the region that feature artists in the same genres, Born and Raised definitely did a better job with adding more female representation on this year’s lineup.
For those headed to Americanafest, it’s important to remember one thing, you’re never going to be able to see everything or everyone that you want. For some attending, they’re there for the networking and conference sessions. For others, it’s reuniting with old friends or discovering new artists. For me, my main objective is always to photograph and listen to artists that are new to me or that I’ve known about and have yet to see, as they haven’t toured in my part of the country.
This year, the team from the Amp was able to experience Americanafest over five days. At times we divided and conquered showcases, other times we banded together and hit all the same shows in a night. At any rate, there was always a special event or showcase to keep our schedules jam-packed.
It’s hard to mention festivals and live music these days and not mention the fact that people have been hungry for both, due to a lingering pandemic that has made live music and large crowds an iffy situation. It’s also worth mentioning with festivals and promoters trying to make up for lost revenue, that holding a festival in 2021 can either be a dismal failure or a resounding success. Thankfully, the folks behind Born & Raised fall in the latter category. There were no water shortages, muddy campgrounds or freak weather to contend with on a balmy, late September weekend in Pryor, Oklahoma. Held at the same grounds as Rocklahoma, which occurred not even 2 weeks earlier, Born & Raised ran like a well-oiled machine. Schedules were kept, there were food vendors galore, and any last-minute artist cancellations were replaced before the festival even took place. The only negatives I witnessed were sound issues on more than one set at the Neon Moon stage and the overwhelming heat. The music was a mix of well-known and up and coming artists, and festival-goers spoke of the campgrounds and how they spent more time than usual there, foregoing music to hang out longer with new and old friends.
If Red Dirt music was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma, its soul resides in Tahlequah, and there is a spot in Cherokee County along the Illinois River that is sacred ground to the Red Dirt music family. Diamondhead Resort hosted the Medicine Stone festival from its beginning as the brainchild of Jason Boland and the Turnpike Troubadours who would select the majority of the artists on the lineup and headline on Friday & Saturday. The festival grew each year and quickly became the “go-to” Red Dirt party. Then came the summer of 2019 with Turnpike’s “indefinite hiatus” and an ugly lawsuit against the manager of the festival (who also happened to manage both Boland & the Troubadours), and the future of Medicine Stone was in serious doubt. Robert Earl Keen filled the headliner spot in Turnpike’s place and the 2019 show went on.
With high temperatures hovering just below the century mark on the last weekend of July, the banks of the Arkansas River in Fort Smith was certainly not the most comfortable place to spend a weekend outdoors with live music, but a diverse lineup and solid production made it worthwhile.
Peacemaker turned seven this year and the festival has overcome some huge obstacles the past two summers. In 2019 the Arkansas flooded the festival site just weeks before the event but the river receded and the show went on even though they had to find a replacement headliner for the Turnpike Troubadours who had just gone on permanent hiatus. Of course last year’s pandemic shut down most festivals but Peacemaker held on even with some last-minute lineup changes and literal last-second changes from the state health department to stand as one of the few two-day outdoor festivals in the country. This year it was the heat that tried to ruin the party but this is one tough festival.
My 1750-mile solo trip to and from Kickin’ It on the Creek (KIOTC) was a journey in many senses of the word. I’m not used to traveling that far by car alone. But for something as special as this festival, I knew I had to do it. I stopped along the way there and back home to visit with and stay with dear friends that I don’t see often enough. I reluctantly, at first, but ultimately savored going off the grid for four days. I caught up with friends and acquaintances, and met some new life-long ones. It’s so refreshing to be surrounded by like-minded folks who are genuinely passionate about the music and are equally kind. So many people from all over the country have welcomed this Nebraska girl into their homes and into their circle of friends. I struggle to find the right words to express how I felt and what I experienced at Kickin’ It on the Creek. Spiritual, soul-cleansing, uninhibited, heart-warming, relaxing, safe, nurturing, kindness, family, community, and fellowship are just a handful of the words I could use in my description. I think everyone’s description would be a little different, but I know we all came away with the same satisfied feeling. If you’ve been to one of the four previous festivals, then you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t experienced a trip to the Wolf Pen Branch on Little Ross’ Creek, then I highly encourage you to make it a priority.
