MagnoliaFest 2011 Report

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 catch the 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:

1. As always the camping was sweet. We had some pretty chilly overnight temps in the high 30's so it was good snuggling weather.
2. 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.
3.  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. 
4. I see the food vendors are back to taking cash instead of those stupid tickets. I bet they are glad about that.
5. 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.
6. We didn't seem to be able to see enough of our old Magfest favorites.
7. 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.
8. Boogie Cat was in attendance but was off his boogie! 
9. The apple crisp at Sweet Revenge Cafe is still the best!

Jen, Van, and boys with Black Betty.

Hittin' The Note. (because music matters)

Johnathon, Black Betty, and Bob.

Gnometown

Mark with his "off" switch.

                                                              Evan on mando.

Suwannee Springfest 2011 Report

Black Betty and I returned to our favorite harbinger of spring the Suwannee Springfest near Live Oak, Florida, last weekend. The weather provided a perfect stage for four days of music, fun, and camping with several thousand of our best friends. We arrived on Thursday afternoon and were joined in Gnometown by our daughter Becky, and friends, Marie, Nate, and Phil.

Gnometown

After setting up camp and reuniting with fellow Festivarians we headed down to the stages and caught kick ass performances by Larry Keel and Natural Bridge, Holy Ghost Tent Revival, Scythian, and Greensky Bluegrass. As a special treat Larry Keel joined Greensky to rip it up on the jammy King Of The Hill.
We couldn't hang for the midnight show by The Motet, but we happily boogied in our sleep to their tunes.

Mark Schimick and Larry Keel

Friday the tough decisions had to be made. Who do we see? Worse yet, who do we miss? It's always a dilemma, I just try to limit the losses. So Friday we were fortunate enough to catch Trampled by Turtles. They were actually standing on stage and not sitting down (as we'd seen them before). As always they picked hard, fast, and precise.  We also caught the unique Sacred Grass sound of the Travelin' McCourys with The Lee Boys. Now that's my kind of Praise Music, bluegrass meets sacred steel! 

Ampitheater Stage

The Gnometown gang was especially excited about the late shows on Friday night. As everyone who knows us understands, we are BIG Greensky Bluegrass and Emmitt Nershi fans. Although we have seen Greensky Bluegrass numerous times, this was their first time playing Springfest. I knew the Friday night Meadow Stage show, which followed Cornmeal would be spectacular. They surely did not disappoint. Greensky ripped it up to a loving and enthusiastic crowd in the midnight hour. The highlight performance of the weekend had to be when Allie, Kris, and JP of Cornmeal joined Greensky on stage to perform the Grateful Dead's China Cat Sunflower/I know You Rider. What a show, what a show! 

 

As soon as the Greensky show ended, we hauled it over to the Emmitt/Nershi Colorado Jam featuring Michael Kang and just about everyone else. There were too many fine musicians joining them on stage to mention them all. Suffice to say the tunes were awesome and Bill Nershi and Drew Emmitt know how to host a super jam!

Black Betty, Becky, Hometown, Marie with Greensky Bluegrass.

The big show for us on Saturday night had to be The Avett Brothers. Four years ago when they played Springfest we were among the few who had seen them before. We ran around telling people not to miss their performance, and I remember them tearing it up on the Meadow stage in front of a small crowd of about 100 people. Of course, now they return to their little festival roots in the big bus as conquering rock stars, hot off their Grammy performance with none other than Bob Dylan! Big time, big time! Their show was hot and inspired. I thought the sound was really terrible for the first half of the set. It was like they were trying to crank them up too loud and it resulted in a constant buzzing for at least six songs. After a LONG time they finally got the sound worked out. They played lots of old favorites, the crowd loved them. Oh yeah, did I mention that they have a drum set now?

A crew of happy Festivarians!

Sunday is always our favorite day of music at Springfest. We can't always stay but this year we could. The highlight of Sunday is always the Donna the Buffalo and friends jam. Once again it was spectacular. Donna was joined by Randy Judy, Galen Kipar, Verlon Thompson, Acoustic Syndicate (Big Daddy sang Rainbow Rollercoaster and the band tossed out Lassie Pops), Rushad Eggleston, Ralph Roddenbery, and, of course, Jim Lauderdale. Wow, each performance was spectacular to say the least. We spent hours smiling and dancing and once again you just can't beat a Donna the Buffalo show.

Bands we managed to see over the weekend: Acoustic Syndicate, Cornmeal, Danny Barnes, David Grisman, Donna The Buffalo, Dread Clampitt, Emmitt-Nershi Band, Greensky Bluegrass, Holy Ghost Tent Revival, Jim Lauderdale, Larry Keel, Ralph Roddenbery, Scythian, Sol Driven Train, Steep Canyon Rangers, The Avett Brothers, The Lee Boys, The Mosier Brothers, The Travelin' McCourys, Trampled By Turtles, and Verlon Thompson.

 Jim Lauderdale

We were a little worried about the future of Springfest last year. I think between the poor economy and a huge 2010 Wannee Festival, the 2010 Springfest took a hit. They did manage to come back bigger and better this year, with the addition of a campground stage. Hopefully, Suwanne Springfest will be around for years to come!

Black Betty and Becky on the beach.

Suwannee Sweets:  Reuniting with old friends, making new friends, Boogie Cat, Sweet Revenge's apple crisp, as always great vibes, killer line-up, the best primitive camping at any festival, my new solar shower, riding bicycles, the river, Jim Lauderdale's corny jokes, Larry Keel's guitar, Allie Kral's fiddle, and Dave McCracken's keys.

Bummers: Not a Peter Rowan in sight, nor did we see any configuration of  The Duhks or Turtle Duhks at the Spirit of the Suwannee all weekend!

Magnoliafest 2010 Initial Lineup

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! 

Railroad Earth // For Love

Railroad Earth gave a stellar performance at the Orange Peel on Friday. The Chicago grass band, Cornmeal (driven by fiddle player Allie Kral) opened with lots of energy and then we were treated by two full sets of pure jamgrass bliss by an inspired and awesome Railroad Earth. It was a hobo's delight, for sure!
I was fortunate enough to video a couple of minutes of Todd Sheaffer singing Robert Earl Keen's "For Love". If I could have requested a song, this would have been it, I must be living right!


The tapers already have the show up on archive, check out the twin fiddles of Tim Carbone and Allie Kral on Cuckoo's Medley for a special treat:

http://www.archive.org/details/Railroad_Earth_Live_at_The_Orange_Peel_on_2009-10-02