2019 Thoughts

Top Performances of the weekend:

1. Tedeschi Trucks Band (Set 2)
2. Vulfpeck
3. Joe Russo's Almost Dead
4. Khruangbin w/Trey
5. Old Crowe Medicine Show
6. Circles Around the Sun
7. Trey Anastasio Band
8. Oteil & Friends
9. Liz Cooper & The Stampede
10. Pigeons Playing Ping Pong

Honorable Mention to that Andy Frasco set that played only in my head.

Here are my stream of consciousness thoughts on the weekend:

Thursday:  Arrive in good spirits, realize almost immediately that I forgot my rainfly. No problem, will use my brand new commercial grade pop-up, glad I bought the 4 zip in walls per Smosey's recommendations. As storm approaches, we laugh at the unprepared campers around us hustling to get stakes in the ground as we sit in the car and watch the storm start. Smugness turns rapidly into panic as the fancy new walls become sails in the 30mph winds. A guy line snaps loose and we are out of the car holding it down for dear life. As lightning strikes all around, Dryw says "This is very dangerous!". Yes, yes it is. Later after recovering the camp, a man runs toward us being chased and people yelling "stop! thief!". Dryw puts his shoulder into the guys chest and stops him cold, I see his amphetamine fueled saucer eyes and advise that we let him go. Then, we finally get to go see some music. Khruangbin is playing as we walk toward the show field and I hear the crowd erupt in applause, 'cool they are digging it' I think since I was excited to see them. As we come into view I realize the applause was for Trey sitting in. Really enjoyed that set but should have gotten their earlier as much of it was Trey noodling and I like the lead guitarists style but he mostly laid back to support Trey. GCJr opening with Bright Lights Big City was awesome. That is the best written song for opening evar. Wasn't a big fan of the last album, so the middle got a little muddy for me, but he closed amazingly. JRAD was excellent as usual and great to see them on the big stage. The Wheel with two songs in the middle was my highlight just because it is so ridiculous. 

Friday: Morning came late and we barely got our act together to make it to the M&G. Thanks Lizard and Donna for hosting! Hanging with all of you is always a highlight. We headed back to camp to prepare for the last storm to pass. No F-ing around this time, we took the canopy off the pop up and pulled the poles out of the tent. Easier to dry the tent than hold down the pop up. I can't say I loved the Edie Brickell set, particularly the song where she started just saying singular words, "Butterfly. Teddy Bears. Muffin Top," but to each their own. I was not a big fan of PPP when I saw them here last time, but they seem to have improved as musicians. Song writting still a bit too gimmicky for me but they were jamming more competently than I remembered and I liked portions of the set. I know people groan over OCMS, but I always enjoy them. I like my bluegrass saccharine and they made it feel like we were at The Grand Ole Opry, or at least Branson. I had seen them last year and bet Dryw they would name drop Virginia at least 4 times, being somewhat aware that not everyone here was from there. We stopped counting at 12. Seeing Cumberland Blues with Bobby was a highlight of the weekend. Ate dinner during the Revivalists. Enjoyed Trey, but Dryw and I reverted to form and split early and missed the Derek set. I know....

Saturday: I walked down for Liz Cooper and the Stampede and hung with Vinnie. It was my favorite set of the whole weekend, partly due to my proximity to the stage and also it is more in my musical wheelhouse. She really put on a show, Dali Llama jam was insane and I need to find that set online. We split after that returning for Twiddle. I enjoyed seeing John Popper again, though the Least Valuable Player award goes to the sound man. When Bobby came out, Popper was playing the whole time and I couldn't hear one note, even when they obviously threw it to him for a solo. The same thing happened throughout the weekend, one whole set I could barely hear Bobby. Oteil and friends. The Allman songs were excellent and the whole place lit up for it. Dryw saw the Allmans more than 30 times, but my only one was at Lockn, so it was great to hear it live. Vulfpeck, meh. I appreciate their musicianship, just not my bag. TTB. Wow. I really don't listen to them at home but every year I see them just gets better and better. It is easy to forget what a freak of nature Derek Trucks is, he is such a bad ass. Susan could outplay most lead guitarists in other bands and her voice is amazing. Stuck through most of the second set this time and got to see Trey play. Having reached my maximum Arpeggio limit for the day, we finally called it quits. 

Sunday: We made it to church and it was great as usual. Some nice additions to the cannon. I am not sure what happened after that but we eventually wandered back to camp and chilled. Didn't make it back until St. Paul. I got to watch Lizard get harassed by the chair police and it seemed like a fight almost broke out down there later, would like to hear the story. I can't say I have really invested much time in MOE but I liked their set. I liked their diversity of songs and more rock n' roll than jam/funk which is more my taste. I was disappointed in the first half of Jason Isbell since I like him alot, but it wasn't my setlist. I just saw him 2 months ago and I liked that setlist better. His best stuff is super slow and depressing, so he had to go with what he has that is upbeat for this crowd. I was glad he went back to DBTruckers because hit showed what a bad ass he is on the guitar. The last 3 of 4 songs (Cover Me Up exclude) were electricity and felt super tight compared to all the jam up to that point. One of the things I noticed this year is the inability of the bands to end a song, dragging out the finales excessively until the crowd just didn't care. Isbell and TBT the night before showed everyone, just end the damn song and let the people scream.

    Bobby. I kind of felt about Bobby how I felt about Willie a few years ago. He was off his game with moments of inspiration, but struggling to keep up. I liked the Wolf Brother's songs where he seemed to be playing the songs he wanted to play rather than the songs we wanted to hear. I'll say it was kind of emotional seeing him play I'll Fly Away similar to seeing Willie. At the end of the day it is Bob Freakin' Weir so just feel lucky you got to see him. 

That is all. Thanks for a great time and enjoyed hanging with all of you!

Different story, lizard. The story I think kuriti wants to hear is the one where the chair police said ADA attendees could have a few members of their camp sit in chars next to the ADA platform with them but kept insisting that we had  as many as 12 people in our group and that was unacceptable. We actually only had 4 - lizard, our son & his fiance, and me. That was the 3rd time in so many days he questioned the size of our group because he saw us talking to people around us and kept assuming they were with us.  I guess if you dare to speak to anyone sitting next to you, they are assumed to be part of your group which is a violation of their rules. We had to move away from the people we had been speaking with to comply. What's odd, is none of the 8 of them sitting next to us were wearing ADA wristbands and nothing was ever said to them. For that matter, there were quite a few parties sitting right next to the platform that had no one with an ADA wristband. The chair police never once approached any of them. 

I mean, anyone with an internet connection can see that any day of the week. Maybe his service was down.

In addition to that drama, there were two other guys near you that almost threw down with people separating them. Spirited bunch down there.

One of our crew was ADA and he told us there was lots of drama on the platform.

Oh - I forgot about the almost-a-fight.

Not sure what was up with that guy. Donna and I had gone back to camp to pick up jackets and stuff, and it was a little more crowded when we got back. I went up to move an empty chair (I actually thought it was Donna's chair because it was exactly like hers) aside so Donna could get her scooter through. A guy sitting next to it grabbed the other arm and tried to wrench it out of my hands. When I tried to explain what I was doing he just jumped up and yelled "I'll get in your face!! I'll get up in your face!" Dude, you're already up in my face. Donna got really upset and headed back the other way. The guys friends around there started yelling at him and throwing stuff at him. I heard our show neighbor Chad came up and got in the guy's face, IDK, but he left shortly after that.

So happy you were able to laugh this off and it didn't spoil your day. Well, now you're famous, or part of you is. Next time might I suggest googly eyes? I'm so in next year!

I got through two staff people searching and then a sheriff moved over to me, got up real close in front of me, and said, "Sir, your zipper is open." I told him he was the best searcher on duty!

Another guy said he came through and the guy after the pat-down pointed to the bulge in his shorts and asked, "Is that your bud" he said yea and the searcher said "carry on."

App also says see you next year.

Anybody got leads on audio files from this weekend?