Merlefest, Part 6, Album Hour, The Waybacks with Joan Osborne

We started hearing about "Album Hour" before arriving at Merlefest. People said things like "It's so cool, they play an entire album from start to finish." and "Get a spot early, it fills up quickly".



Waiting at the Hillside Stage for "Hillside Album Hour" to begin.
By the time they started, the hill next to me was completely filled in, hipbone to hipbone.


The event is really called "Hillside Album Hour". Each year The Waybacks choose an iconic album to play from start to finish.  The chosen album is a closely guarded secret until they start playing. This year, they gave some clues, the main clue being that it was an album made in America. I did hear the guy sitting next to me mention the album of choice as people were guessing, but really, nobody knew. In past years they had done Zeppelin II, The Beatles' Abbey Road, and The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers. This year, with Joan Osborne and her gorgeous voice joining them, they did The Allman Brothers Band, Eat a Peach.

It was really pretty funny. We were all sitting around guessing these albums like Michael Jackson's Thriller (with Joan Osborne?) and Springsteen's Born in the USA, expecting that when they played the first few chords it would be crystal clear what it was.  After the first track much of the crowd was still looking at their neighbor for an answer. A typical exchange was "Quizzical look" answered by a mouthed "The Allman Brothers, Eat a Peach" "Ahhhh, Ok". Rachel and I checked Twitter. James Nash, lead singer and guitarist of The Waybacks, after the first instrumental track, said "That's how it starts" or something very similar.

There appeared to be an expectation that Album Hour should be almost a sing-along, familiar song after familiar song. The Allman Brothers' most well known songs are not on Eat a Peach. I had heard a couple of the songs but my friend, Rachel, had not. People started leaving after the third or track or so and they probably lost about 15% of the crowd. We stuck it out and were rewarded.

The Waybacks are great musicians. Eat a Peach is one of these albums with what feels like ten minute guitar riffs, the kind all we girls sat through in dorm rooms watching our boyfriends play air guitar to.  Some of those guys were there in the audience and you could see them using all their willpower to keep from breaking into air guitar. The Waybacks executed the instrumental stretches with such panache that I only rolled my eyes once. Joan Osborne definately rocked the vocals.

In the end, the cherry on top was "Whipping Post", a song not actually on Eat a Peach. Great song. Here's the video.

Merlefest, Part 3, Scythian and the Dance Tent

If you read my previous post, I said that dancing during performances is not part of the culture of Merlefest. This does not hold true for the Dance Tent.

After the Doobie Brothers finished their final encore we walked to the Dance Tent where it sounded like a riot was taking place. At least 1000 people were crammed into a tent and jumping up and down to a band called Scythian. Scythian seems to be broadly categorized as Celtic Rock but with many other influences, Eastern European and Gypsy for example. My favorite song was "Cubicles and Tylenol" (click for video) that starts out like a Klezmer song.

Scythian in the Dance Tent is really best described by the following videos. The first video was produced by the band. The second is taken by someone in the audience while they were doing an 80s mix. Remember when watching that most of these people are completely sober.

We have to thank the big group of students in the front for setting the pace of the dancing. My thighs hurt for days from jumping. Saturday night Donna the Buffalo was in the Dance Tent. They were fun but it was nothing like dancing with Scythian.

Scythian's "American Shanty" was the only CD I purchased for myself at the show. In all fairness I would have also bought a Harper and Midwest Kind CD, but they were sold out. (Next post will talk about Harper and Midwest Kind).

Merlefest, Part 2, Emmitt-Nershi Band, Doobie Brothers

We arrived in Wilkesboro around 4:30PM on Friday. We pitched out tent, got some grub from the Firemen's concessions at Sewerfest, and jumped on an old school bus to be shuttled to Merlefest.

As Merlefest newbies, we soon discovered our first mistake. We arrived at the main stage, and realized that we should have brought chairs rather than a blanket. We found a good spot but the field is not sloped. 95% of the audience is sitting in chairs. It is impossible to see the stage when sitting on the ground. "It will be OK" I said. "Everyone will be up and dancing during the Doobie Brothers." (Remember that quote.)

The Emmitt-Nershi Band started playing soon after we arrived. Apparently anyone who follows Bluegrass knows who Emmitt and Nershi are, but I'll admit that I had never heard of them. They are from two very well known bands, Leftover Salmon and String Cheese Incident. Emmitt-Nershi were excellent and a good band to set the tone for Rachel and my next two days at Merlefest. My note from their performance says "I love the way a Bluegrass song can seemingly ramble on".

This is a video I found on YouTube from of the Emmitt-Nershi Band performing "Down in the Hollow" at Merlefest this year.

Finally the Doobie Brothers came on, so everyone stood up to dance. You have to dance around to the Doobie Brothers. Don't you? Apparently not. Dancing does not appear to be part of the culture of Merlefest. As the evening gets chilly folks huddle down under blankets in their woolly hats and fleece blankets. I love the Doobie Brothers but that was the most uncomfortable first half of a concert I've endured. Nobody stood up. In order to see and not block the view of the bundled being behind us we kneeled and shifted our weight so as not to do permanent damage to our 40 or so year old knees

The Doobie Brothers sounded fabulous. They played all of their old hits plus a few songs from their new album. Their first release from the album "World Gone Crazy" is called Nobody (click for video). It sounds like another Doobie Brothers song and doesn't knock my socks off, but the official video has some ancient and entertaining footage of them. The new song I really like it called "Far From Home" (click for video). It's just a quiet and sweet song.

This video from YouTube is what the concert looked like to me, kneeling way in the back.

Finally I'd had enough of the kneeling and decided that I don't give a hoot about obstructing the view of the huddled masses. "Blackwater" was the straw that broke the camel's back. I jumped up, sang my heart out, and danced around for the rest of the concert. The Doobie Brothers are one of those bands that have so many great songs, they do one encore and you say, "That must be it, they've sung it all." and they pull another hit out of the archive.

Merlefest, Part 1, Sewerfest

I had never heard of Merlefest until my friend Rachel asked me to go. Merlefest is a four day music festival that takes place on the campus of Wilkes Community College in Wilkesboro N.C. It focuses on Bluegrass, Folk, Roots, and Americana and is a fundraiser for the college.

Rachel wanted to attend because she is a huge Lyle Lovett fan. Lovett played on Saturday. We noticed that the Doobie Brothers were playing on Friday night and as I love the Doobie Brothers, we bought tickets for Friday as well. We bought tickets for both days before we found out that there really aren't any hotels with availability nearby, so we decided to camp. I am a camper. Rachel is not. She was putting all her trust in me.

After looking at our camping options on the Merlefest website, the one that caught my attention was called "Sewerfest" as it's located on the property of the Wilkesboro wastewater treatment plant. It is run by the Wilkesboro Fire Dept. as a fundraiser. They said they have plenty of hot water and don't stink. I read some reviews that raved about Sewerfest, so I booked a campsite.


The view from our campsite. It felt very private.



At Sewerfest there is a crowded area of campsites near the plant with it's large brown lagoon and the office, and then there are some remote sites up on a hill above it all. We had one of these remote sites. The benefit of being a bit farther out is that Sewerfest is a festival in and of itself. There are crowds of banjo, mandolin and guitar players picking away into the early hours of the morning. (click to watch video) We stayed up on Friday night past 2am in an empty garage listening to a bunch of pickers jam. On Saturday night we could faintly hear the party going on late into the night but we turned in early, around midnight. We were pooped.



The negative is the bathroom facilities. You would think that being a wastewater treatment plant, this is the one thing they'd have down pat, but alas. They have two bath houses in the main camping area and they were dirty. I am pretty sure that the bathrooms and showers were not cleaned every day, if at all, and one of the toilets was clogged. Nobody fixed it while we were there. Out in the remote camping areas there are portapotties that were OK, but they also got pretty gross by the end of our stay. When we arrived and realized that we only had portapotties near our campsite I feared Rachel would become despondent, but she handled it all like a trooper.



The portapotties nearest to our campsite.

When it's all said and done, I'd consider staying at Sewerfest again. Besides the fact that whenever we told someone we were staying at Sewerfest we got a nod of respect, they had convenient shuttles to and from the concert and we didn't need to cook at our campsite. The firemen sold very good food.  If next time we are friendlier at the late night jams, we'll probably have a great time there.

Plus, I got some of the best sleep I've ever had camping. The roar of the fountain in the middle of the large brown lagoon drowns out the crunch of leaves from a passing critter or the hoot of an owl. Only those pesky early morning birds were loud enough to wake me up.

Stay tuned for articles about the concert itself.