All Good!

We left for our first music festival in 4 years at 1 pm. 10 hours later we would be sitting on top of a mountain listening to the Dark Star Orchestra give their rendition of October 29, 1977 Evans Field House - Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL. By the time we arrived to the center city of Masontown it was about 4pm and our stomachs turned in anxious butterflys. How was this weekend going to play out?

We sat for 2 hours, in line waiting to park at our campsite. Luckily the weather was holding up, in fact it was absolutely beautiful, and the sights were spectacular. By the time we arrived at our home for the next 3 days we couldn't wait to stretch our legs and set up camp. We were a little dumbfounded when we realized that we would be camping next to our cars, and basically right on top of everyone else. This was actually perfect because the thought of lugging all of our stuff up the mountain was ridiculous. With just a little bit of struggle we finally got our tent up and our air mattress filled. I made some quick notes on what to bring next time (ie. table, tiki-torches, glowsticks for the tent ties, etc). We ate our prepared kabobs of which we cooked on our mini-grill, and with full stomachs headed up to the Ropeadope stage for the beginning of Dark Star Orchestra. By the second set, we had had enough music for the night, and were actually quite chilly. We headed down to the tent for some much needed sleep, but not before making a quick stop at our weekend nemesis...the portapotty.

Friday was to begin with our neighbors blasting Phish and bong hits at 9am. These guys (and one girl) would turn out to be some hardcore partiers, esspecially early in the morning. We made some pancakes and waited to head over to the concert ground. They finally cleaned the portapotties by 2pm and we were ready. Our first show would be Mo's favs, The Pietasters. From what she could remember, we jotted down the setlist which looked like this:
Let's spend the night together
Biblical Sense
"new album song"
I got something better
Girl Take it Easy
Maggie May
Freakshow

There were a few others that she couldn't remember, but all in all it was a good show. Yonder Mountain String Band would be next up and we were quite excited. It was the weather that we were not getting excited about. As one of the opening bands were finishing their set, I could see the staff wrapping the lights with plastic bags...uh oh. The clouds were getting darker and darker, and swirling in. As YMSB came on we knew it wouldn't be long, luckily we were semi-prepared with one raincoat...lol. The setlist that I jotted down looked like this:
Hill Country Girl
Damned If The Right One Didn't Go Wrong
Night Out
Belle Parker
Rambler's Anthem
Kentucky Mandolin
Funtime
The Bolton Stretch
Angel >>>
Follow Me Down To The Riverside >>>
Angel >>>
Years With Rose
Ten
Encore
Holding

By the time "Ramblers Anthem" kicked in, one of my favs, the rain came tumbling down. I mean, it poured and the thunder and lightning just made things better. Mo left to the camp to get more supplies, and unfortunately missed "Holding" one her favs, and one song that we had been listening to while waiting in our car to get into the campsite the day before. The rain let up and the skys opened up to perfectly blue skys by the time the encore began and I could finally start to dry out.

We got to see some of the band Love Whip and also a bit of the Steel Pulse set. We sat through Wil Hoge waiting for what would turn out to be the show of the weekend: Keller and the Keels.

We've seen Larry Keel, Jenny Keel, and Keller "Keel", a couple times in the past, and we knew what they had in store for us. There set that night was probably the best we've seen. The setlist looked like this:

Crater In The Backyare
Faster Horses? (Larry Song?)
Mary Jane's Last Breakdown
Take Me Home, Country Road
Kidney in a Cooler
Mountain Song
Doobie In My Pocket? (new Keller song we had not heard)
New Horizons (w/ Jeff Austin of YMSB on Mandolin)
Local
Freeker By The Speaker
Breathe->
Another Brick In The Wall->
Breathe
Inside Out (Eve 6)
All Fall Down -> Culpeper Woodchuck
Loser (Beck) -> Loser (GD) (w/ Bob Weir)
Dupree's Diamond Blues (w/ Bob Weir)

The song of the night was definitely Doobie In My Pocket > New Horizons. "Doobie" is a classic Keller song, with all of his jovial lyrics and real life story telling. But, the New Horizons was especially hot, as an all-out glowstick war, a'la Phish's Harry Hood, took place. People were throwing them by the 10's and it made for some awesome visuals.

I don't remember much of the next set (Lotus), but I like them enough to warrant buying their latest cd. They play a nice mix of jazz/electronica that is just beautiful. Ratdog had me up and dancing and singing along. I have mixed feelings about Bob Weir though. I mean everyone loves Bobby, but at some points I feel a little like he is "phoning it in", so to speak. What made the set so great, in my humble opinion, was Steve Kimock who was filling in for the bands regular guitarist Mark Karan. Kimock is amazing, plain and simple. And, I think he carried the band. He makes noises that, if you closed your eyes, you would swear it was the ghost of Jerry coming through the amp. But, he doesn't just imitate Jerry, he makes his sound his own and expands on it exponentially. The set was pretty damn good though, and I wasn't complaining, although I was getting a little chilly and tired. Benevento/Russo Duo was up next and played a quick set that hit on all cylinders. But what I was really waiting for was the STS9 late-night set. A little after 2am, they hit the stage, and the fog that was setting in during "The Duo's" set, left a blanket that the lighting engineer really took advantage of. If only I could keep up with these youngsters, this may have been the MUST SEE set of the weekend. Alas, my eyes had become blurry, and I started to feel a little bad that Mo was back at the tent all alone. I did have to stay just to see those lights for a little while. The walk back to the camp was surreal. The fog was so thick that you could hardly see 4 ft. in front of you. And, the tweakers stumbling to and fro made me chuckle and remember the days that my buddies might have done the same thing...out of mind, in some kind of substance.

Saturday had us going back and forth to the concert area a couple of times. Our first stop was The Assembly of Dust's set, which, at 1pm, was the perfect setting for some down-home hick-funk. I've stated before how much I love Reid Genauer's lyrics. He played my favorite song "Speculator" and it was extremely fitting. We saw a little bit of Grace Potter's set...she is trying to be Janis Joplin sometimes, but I get it. She can pull it off, she's got a great voice and a nice little backing band to boot. We skipped Les Claypool. It seemed like everyone wanted to see him. I can take him or leave him. We wanted to save our energy for a long, late night. Michael Franti came on at 9pm, and he started his set out with a little video of his song "It's Time to Come Home". All of it set to George Bush's spliced in lyrics. Pretty funny actually. There set looked like this:
Time to go Home
Sometimes >
Hey Now Now
Taxi Radio
East to the West
Please Take Me Home
Sweet Little Lies
Stay Human
People in the Middle >
Red Red Wine
Nobody Right, Nobody Wrong
Rock the Nation
What I Got >
Theme from Sesame Street >
What I Got
Light Up Ya Lighter
I know I'm Not Alone
Yell Fire!
One Step Closer to You
Everybody Ona Move

One day I swear I am going to play a drinking game and do a shot everytime Michael Franti yells "How you Feelin?"! Moe.'s set was another highlight of the weekend. They played a very old skool set with many songs from their first, second and third albums. This was not dissapointing in the least bit. I've seen many reviews online where the moe.rons claimed it was one of the best ever. There setlist looked like this:
Rebubula >>>
32 Things
Spine of a Dog >>>
Rebubula >>>
Plane Crash
Skrunk
The Pit >>>
Rebubula >>>
Akimbo
Encore
Crab Eyes

Rebubula just kept rearin' it's pretty little head! What followed was the All Star Jam, but again...I guess I'm getting old. Oh well. As Kenny Liner's beat boxing kicked in, my walk "home" was in sync to the tunes. Good times.

By Sunday morning, it was pretty apparent that we were definitely not in it for the long haul. Mo and I were pretty much done. I made the statement "I think we've gotten this out of our system", and we made our way home. We couldn't wait to take showers and sleep in our beds. All worthwhile endeavors!