Black Betty, Becky, and I packed up our little Gnometown on Thursday and headed down I-75 to the Spirit of the Suwannee music park near Live Oak, Florida for Magfest 2013.
The first thing that grabbed our attention as we entered the park was the large crowd. The place was incredibly packed out for a Magfest Thursday. Most of the reserved sites in the campground seemed already to be occupied, and as we approached our regularly sparsely populated, primitive camping area, it was crowded with tents. I never saw this many peeps at a Magfest, even on a Saturday. We pushed just a little further beyond before setting up Gnometown out in the grassy field, amongst the live oaks, Spanish moss, and fire ants. Oh yeah, we were ready for some music.
Home sweet Gnometown.
By the time we got down to the Amphitheater stage, it was time for the legendary Col. Bruce Hampton
and Friends to "Hampmotize" the assembled crowd. The Colonel's band set the mood for the weekend, rocking and rolling, with class and style. They finished with an incredible cover of Cream's, I'm So Glad. If I close my eyes, I can still hear the Festivarian chorus singing along with the Colonel, "I"m so glad, I'm so glad, I'm so glad, glad, glad..." We were glad, indeed.
Col. Bruce.
Next up was the outlaw bluegrass trio, Grandpa's Cough Medicine from the Jacksonville area. We have seen them before at Suwannee and they just continue to deliver the medicine. Brett Bass, guitar picker extraordinaire, is a perfect pitchman for their songs of murder, deceit, and corruption. They are lots of fun and well worth seeking out if they play around your town.
To wrap up the night, we were treated to the Gnometown favorite, Railroad Earth. I was rather surprised that I was approached by several folks (I was wearing a RRE shirt) who had never heard them and wanted to know about them. One guy asked me the type of music they played, and when I replied, "JamGrass" he said, "I like to smoke grass and I like to jam, so I will probably like them." I'm thinking he probably did like them.
Anyway, when RRE took the stage, they did effectively blow the crowd away with their absurdly exceptional musicianship and Todd Sheaffer's wonderfully lyrical songwriting and haunting vocals. It continues to amaze me how they continue to deliver such incredible music. I've never seen a "tired" show or any evidence of the band having a "bad day". Noteworthy of this show, RRE did a spot-on cover of The Band's Acadian Driftwood (I hadn't heard them do that one for a while), and they performed a somewhat short but perfectly jammy and delectable, Head. I actually believe, deep down in my heart that this time, during the heated battle between Tim Carbone on fiddle and John Skehan on mandolin (which drives the song, Head), that John kicked Tim's ass. I've seen this war fought dozens of times, usually with mixed results. This particular time there is no question in my mind who the victor was. Wow!
Railroad Earth.
Todd Sheaffer.
It was quiet back at Gnometown and I slept really good. One advantage of being in the back fields at Suwannee is that it is mostly far removed from the drum circle, all night jams, partying, and drunken yahoo-ing, which is sometimes difficult to escape at music festivals. Believe me, at my age, I value my sleep more than listening to a blow by blow live time account of someone "pushing the fool button".
We were camped in a large area populated by families with lots of young kids so things were quiet at night, and the kids were wide open during the day. Lots of football, soccer, Frisbee, bike riding, sword fighting, tag, etc. It was a very entertaining scene to watch over morning coffee.
We discovered that, despite our best effort to avoid the fire ants, we must have been on top of some. The little buggers were crawling up on the pop-up and causing trouble, so I had to purchase some deterrent from the camp store. Problem solved.
Camp Becky.
The Corbitt Brothers Band was playing at the Meadow stage in the early afternoon. They are friends of Becky's and are a hard-driving southern rock band from the Jacksonville area and have a Franklin, NC connection, so we went and checked them out. They were gritty, passionate, and intense. Brother Isaac on freight train harmonica and brother Newsome on guitar and vocals kept the large crowd dancing in the meadow.
Corbitt Bros.
Later in the afternoon, we returned to the stages for the evening performances. Keller Williams and the Traveling McCourys were on the Meadow stage. No matter how many times I hear this collaboration, I just continue to gain more and more appreciation of it. Keller fits in perfectly with these guys and The McCourys bring it, for sure. You can tell that they have collaborated for many years and have a true respect and admiration for the musicianship of each other and a pure love and understanding of the tunes that they deliver. It clearly shines through in their playing. Besides playing many wonderful tunes from their album, Pick, they nailed a dead-on cover (pun-intended) of the Grateful Dead'sCandy Man. Becky said that although it was never among her favorite Dead songs, hearing Keller and Co. doing it certainly gave her a new appreciation of the song. Man, it was all good stuff!
Meadow stage during Keller and Traveling McCourys.
Next up was Kris Kristofferson at the Amphitheater stage. Yes, he is a legendary songwriter.. Now, this venue was packed out; you could barely make your way down into the amphitheater. Pretty much, it was Kris, his guitar, his trademark voice, his two minute songs. You get the picture. For me, his show would have been better suited for a small bar or honky-tonk than for the big stage. We couldn't quite hang with it; although, I am sure some folks loved it.
Who cares whether Kris rang our bell or not, because John Prine was up next at the Meadow stage. Now, this was the show of the weekend. Prine manifested as the reincarnation of Buddha on stage. He was funny, he was sweet, he was insightful, he was all knowing, and he transcended space and time. He was the intuitive songwriter who wrote all those tender songs which revealed his complete understanding of the human condition. We knew all the words to all his songs. During Sam Stone, you could hear a pin drop. I've never witnessed that phenomenon in such a large festival crowd before. During Hello In There, an older woman who was sitting by me, turned and whispered in my ear, "That song is just pitiful, just pitiful!" I had to agree. Black Betty started crying at Angel From Montgomery and wept through the rest of the show. It was truly a transcendental experience and one of those live music moments that I live for. Kris Kristofferson joined Prine on stage for an encore of Paradise.
After Prine, we walked back over to the amphitheater to listen to Stephen Marley. As a five time Grammy winner and son of Bob Marley, Stephen is no slouch. We listened to some sweet, sweet, reggae before heading back to Gnometown for some quality dream time.
Stephen Marley
Saturday was spent with lots of great music. Tornado Rider started us off with their regular insane intensity and Rashad Eggleston's nonsensical verbal ramblings and hard rocking cello punk band. Next, we dug on the Heavy Pets trancey reggae fusion.
Like almost everyone else at Magfest, we were really excited to see The Duhks again. Leonard, Tania Elizabeth, and company brought the love back to Suwannee with them and it was certainly palpable in the crowd.
The Duhks
Mavis Staples rocks, what can I say? I loved her doing The Weight and praising the late, great Levon Helm. Great stuff, her powerful stage presence took my breath away!
Mavis Staples Band
Donna The Buffalo really brought their "A" game with them. You know, I really love them, and I can't say enough about just how ass-kicking this current configuration of the band is. Dave McCracken, Kyle Sparks, and Mark Raudabaugh, without a doubt, kick up the energy and vibe of the band bringing Jeb and Tara with them. Awesome stuff. My only complaint is that they didn't play all four days! Some sweet boogie time, for sure!
Tara Nevins.
Jeb, Kyle, Mark.
Dave McCracken
Willie Nelson and Family were up next and were as great as ever. I saw them for the first time 33 years ago in Austin, and I couldn't tell that Willie has slowed up any. Actually, few things in this old world can trump listening to Willie sing Always On My Mind on a warm fall evening with your family and friends. The fact the Willie is 80 years old and singing, "Roll me up and smoke me when I die" says it all. This man is truly an American icon. BTW, some lucky fan in the meadow got to go home with Willie's black cowboy hat that he tossed into the crowd during his performance. Just think what a family heirloom that hat is destined to become! Oh yeah, our very own Jim Lauderdale along with Willie's daughter, Amy, came out on stage for the finale.
The Drive By Truckers finished our night out for us. Loud, hard rocking, fun. Hey, it was the Truckers!
Willie Nelson.
Unfortunately, we had to pack up Gnometown on Sunday to head back home to North Cackalacky. So we missed all the great Donna The Buffalo Sunday jams. I hope the tapers got it all recorded and are loading it up to archive, so we can hear what we missed.
Magfest Vibes:
Over all, it was a nice weekend of music. We missed lots of music, but you can only see so much. What we did see was spectacular! The weather was perfect, if not a little hot. Highs were in the 80's, lows in the 60's. No rain, just a light sprinkle for about 5 minutes.
I don't know what they were thinking with the the scheduling of the Porch Stage and the Amphitheater. Many times they had music going on at the same time on these two close-proximity stages. The sound would often bleed through to the other stage while we were trying to enjoy the band in front of us. Bummer. This festival had a much larger crowd than the Magfests of the past. We actually prefer smaller fests, the big crowds tend to make it too difficult to get as close to the music as we like to be. We talked on the way home about the possibility of just sticking with Springfest in the spring and Shakori Hills in the fall for next year. We will see what the lineup looks like.
Black Betty and I packed up the little pop-up and cruised on down to the lovely Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park for the 15th Annual MagnoliaFest last week. We arrived in time to set up camp in the usual great spot, find a few Festivarian friends, and head down to the amphitheater stage in time to catch a few of the Thursday night acts.
Col. Bruce Hampton and the Pharoah Gummitt tore things up with their bluesy rock. We love this band featuring Nick Johnson on guitar, Kevin Scott on bass, and Duane Trucks on drums. Col. Bruce even channeled the late great Howlin' Wolf during a blistering cover of Smokestack Lightning.
Next we saw 7 Walkers featuring Papa Mali, Bill Kreutzmann, George Porter, Jr and Matt Hubbard. We had first seen them a year ago at Magfest and have been listening to their killer "swamp-a-delic" jammy bliss ever since. 7 Walkers thoroughly lit it up and warmed the cool night air and played for nearly three hours. They performed many of their own Robert Hunter penned songs and several Dead covers including Sugaree, Bird Song, He's Gone, I know you Rider and encored with New Speedway Boogie. What a way to start out MagFest! As an added bonus we got to meet and talk with Matt Hubbard who stood in the long coffee line with us before the show.
Papa Mail and Bill Kreutzmann of 7 Walkers
Friday, we enjoyed a leisurely morning around camp before heading over to the amphitheater to catch the Mobile Alabama rocker, Grayson Capps.
Friday night, we managed to catchthe jamgrass allstars Railroad Earth who encored with a crowd pleaser, Bird in the House. The Travelin' McCourys and Keller Williams seemed to be a perfect match for each other playing some great tunes from both the McCoury's traditional roots and Keller's more contemporary side (Oh, yes, they played the Port-a-Potty song). Keller / McCoury set on Internet Archive
We also walked over to the new mega-stage at the meadow for the big Lucinda Williams show. It was actually the first time that we saw Lucinda. She has a great band but otherwise maybe more "super-star" status than I'm used to in my local live-music scene.
There was lots of other great bands playing on Friday including: Dread Clampitt, Steel Pulse, Galen Kipar Project, Sloppy Joe, The Corbitt Brothers, and moe.
Grayson Capps
Railroad Earth
Saturday afternoon, Mr Americana himself, Jim Lauderdale, entertained the crowd at the amphitheater with various guests joining him on stage including the Infamous Stringdusters. The Lee Boys featuring the incredible Roosevelt Collier on pedal steel got the meadow rocking. Victor Wooten jammed on bass and provided every one there with a rhythm lesson. By this time if you weren't off your seat and on your feet there was something bad wrong.
Jim Lauderdale joined by The Infamous Stringdusters
Lee Boys with Victor Wooten
The defining moment of the weekend revealed itself to me when Bela Fleck joined Cornmeal for an unbelievably sweet-jam-bliss-eighteen-minute-long Shady Grove. Man! Allie, Kris, and Bela absolutely transcended the physical realm on that one! Wavy Dave really brought it on too and holds his own against the banjo guru! I couldn't believe that I was in the right place at the right time and got to video the whole damn thing! Talk about good karma! I'll get to re-experience this moment for years to come!I still get goose bumps when I watch it.
Cornmeal
Donna the Buffalo played Saturday night on the meadow stage. It was strange to have them so far above and beyond the audience. It's really not the whole Donna vibe. They were absolutely great though. They even started on time if you can believe that. I think it may have something to do with Dave McCracken doing the sound check. And talk about McCracken, is there a better keyboard guy around? Jeb and Tara have really put themselves together a hard driving boogie-groove machine with this rhythm section. Jeb talked some about the state of the nation (as he should) and about the Occupy Wall Street movement. He sang about loving life and the life of the living in a song called All Aboard. Most of all it was just a great Donna show; all about feeling good, feeling the love, singing the words, and dancing! They encored with Hot Tamale Baby before they were booted off stage by the stage manager who was in a hurry to set up for moe. Donna The Buffalo set on Internet Archive
Donna The Buffalo.
Saturday many other bands played including the New Orleans Suspects, Papa Grows Funk, The Mosier Brothers, Grandpa's Cough Medicine, and moe. Sunday schedule included Acoustic Ensemble, The Lee Boys, The Mosier Brothers, Jim Lauderdale, Cornmeal, and Donna the Buffalo.
moe
Magfest Vibes:
As always the camping was sweet. We had some pretty chilly overnight temps in the high 30's so it was good snuggling weather.
The best part of the festival is always reuniting with our festival friends. We were happy to be able to spend time with them. We missed the ones who were unable to make it.
The Meadow Stage now seems to be the main stage. This makes sense to some extent but it seems to be mighty damn big and far away. The sound is absolutely spectacular though.
I see the food vendors are back to taking cash instead of those stupid tickets. I bet they are glad about that.
We liked that the shows started later and the bigger shows at night were staggered so you didn't have to decide who you would see or miss.
We didn't seem to be able to see enough of our old Magfest favorites.
We were bummed that we couldn't stay for the Sunday shows. They are usually our favorite part of the festival especially the Donna and friends jams. We both had to work on Monday with a seven hour drive home.
Boogie Cat was in attendance but was off his boogie!
The apple crisp at Sweet Revenge Cafe is still the best!
Black Betty and I grooved our way through another great Magfest at the Spirit of the Suwannee music park this weekend. Perfect weather, a full moon, and a kick-ass music line up all came together to create one special and unforgettable Magfest.
Thursday night alone was worth the trip just to see the energetic and exhilarating performances by Cornmeal and Railroad Earth. We were psyched up to see both groups, listening to RRE's new CD and the Internet archive's Cornmeal show from Springfest on the drive down from North Carolina. Yes, Allie Kral and Tim Carbone joined each other on stage during the Cornmeal show (as predicted by festivarian, Melanie) and duelled with their deadly fiddles to the delight of the crowd.
Once again, Jim Lauderdale and Donna The Buffalo rocked Mag like they were on fire! There is nothing like dancing to Donna while Uncle Jim sings his heart out. And what about Dave McCracken on keys? Wow! Like I said on my SpringFest report, this guy fuels the jam.
Of course, we're big Keel fans around the Hometown homestead and I must say that Keller and the Keels had a huge show Saturday night playing most of the songs from their new CD Thief and a few from their older Grass. They were definitely a crowd favorite. There was an odd moment when Peter Rowan joined them on stage and appeared to have forgotten how to play his guitar!
7 Walkers, the super group featuring Papa Mali and Bill Kreutzmann was everything that I thought it would be, jammy New Orleans meets Grateful Dead meets Magfest. It was my first time seeing Papa Mali live, and I can tell you, he sure can play one mean guitar. They played a few old Dead songs (including "Sugaree") and some new Robert Hunter-penned 7 Walker songs. What can I say? We loved it and can't wait until the CD is released.
Magfest Vibes:
We managed to miss several bands that we wanted to see, bummer! You just can't see them all.
Mike and Ruthy were better than ever with their Folk City Band. We love their new CD.
The Turtle Duhks always steal the show, how can you not love Leonard and Lydia?
Bobby Miller and The Virginia Dare Devils, 18 South, Sloppy Joe, Peter Rowan, and Sam Bush played their hearts out for us. We loved them all!
Jeff and Johnny Mosier were hot, hot, hot! The Rev laid his "ole love" on us--may we all find that love! Talk about karma, their new CD arrived in time to be released at MagFest! David Blackmon on fiddle..... man!
I didn't remember Wet Willie being as funky and soulful as they are. I actually expected to be disappointed by them; instead, I was pleasantly impressed! Steamy stuff!
Joe Craven inspired us with his talk of enlightenment, growth, change, and courage. This guy is the true Renaissance man.
As always the camping was sweet; Gnometown was our oasis.
It was wonderful to see the old friends who could attend and it was sad that several were unable to make it.
The apple crisp at Sweet Revenge was as good as ever. I ate it all weekend.
If you ever get a chance, be sure to hop aboard the Hopryland bus!
There was talk of this being the last MagnoliaFest. Founders Beth and Randy Judy are not producing the 2011 Suwannee Springfest in March. I'm not in the loop, so we'll have to see what happens.
There seems to be too much momentum here to let it end here!
The lineup looks really good so far for MagnoliaFest 2010. I know that Black Betty and I are stroked and stoked to see it up and posted after the small turn-out for Suwanee SpringFest this year. I must say that I am intrigued by the joining of Bill Kreutzmann and Papa Mali in 7 Walkers, especially knowing that Robert Hunter has penned a number of songs specifically for them. No way am I going to miss that show.
Railroad Earth, hell yes! The jam is always sweeter when the train comes to town! Keller and Keels, awesome new album, see them every chance we get! Donna the Buffalo, Peter Rowan, can we have MagFest without them? I think not. Cornmeal, Col. Bruce, how about a fantasy jam with Allie Kral and the Quark Alliance? Jeff and Johnny Mosier, we love them guys around here. Can't wait to see them again! Dread Clampitt, hot, hot, hot! Mike and Ruthie are one of our all time favorites. We are so happy to be able to see them back in Suwanee!
So far, so good. I can't wait to see what else MagFest has in store for us!
Posts
