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Saturday, March 27, 2004
Saturday March 27, 2004
Roy Book Binder - Roy started
off the day by giving a "hands on" guitar lesson. This was a highlight for
me, because he mainly concentrated on fingerpicking blues guitar. Right
up my freaking alley! I really wished I had brought a tape recorder, so
I could take away more from the lesson. He was extremely friendly and helpful,
and the lesson was very cool.
Flatpicking workshop by David Grier (of Philips, Grier & Flinner), Larry Keel and James Nash (from the Waybacks) - Since I'm not really concentrating on flatpicking myself, I just mainly went to this workshop to hear some amazing playing, and I that's what I heard. These three guys answered the crowd's questions, and played some mind-boggling tunes that just amazed me at how fast they move around on that guitar neck.
Songwriting Workshop by Guy Clark,
Jim Lauderdale and
Verlon Thompson - My wife had
the chance to talk to Verlon before this set and tried to explain to him
how his material touched her. Verlon, in return, dedicated a song to Susan
during this set. Guy and Verlon were awesome yet again...and oh yeah, that
Jim guy played too.
Fingerstyle guitar workshop by
Sam Pacetti, Clyde Walker
and Stevie Coyle (from the Waybacks)
- These were three different fingerstyle players, each with their own style,
and it made for a great workshop. They each played some material and answered
questions as best they could. They worked well together.
Peter Rowan - I caught just the last song of Peter Rowan doing a solo acoustic set. He was one performer I wish I had more time for after the fest ended.
Roy Book Binder - I went to
this based solely on my appreciation for Roy's class that morning. He was
pretty much ignored by the crowd, but I thought he was great. His acoustic
blues style was a bit different from most of the folk/bluegrass of the weekend,
but it was a welcome interlude in my opinion.
Speaking of which, these pictures ought to give you an idea of the layout
of the main stage. It's an amazing setting for music.
Bluegrass Session featuring Béla
Fleck, Vassar Clements,
Tony Rice,
Peter Rowan,
Mike Marshall and Bryn Blight
- An amazing group of musicians on the same stage, and this set turned out
much better than I expected. I was expecting it to be a showcase as to how
amazing these musicians are, but it was truly a great set of music instead
of a bunch of solos loosely tied together. Susan and I both agreed this
was a great set, because it was very possible this could downward spiral
into a set of "I saw what you did, and I'm gonna outplay that." Thank goodness
it didn't. Finally, during their set, they had a artist do an painting in
honor of the set. Here's how it came out...
Guy Clark with
Verlon Thompson - Okay, are
you starting to see a trend here? Susan and I were very taken by these two,
and even though this officially was a Guy Clark set, Guy let Verlon pay
a few of his songs. Verlon mainly filled in the sound for Guy's songs and
played the solos for Guy's songs. Guy has the amazing ability set you in
the lyrics of a song, and you can perfectly visualize his little world.
We sat up front for this set. Awesome.
Béla Fleck & the Flecktones - Béla's a freak...in a good way of course. I've never heard a guy give such range to a banjo. He made it fit perfectly into a jazz setting, and I heard he can do the same in a classical music setting too. The bass player was a monster as well...slapping and plucking that thing like crazy. It was an entertaining show that was another Psychograss for us. We were too tired to really get into the band. I'd like a real evening of them in a more standard headliner billing, instead of playing after a full day of bands. I bet I'd dig them even more.
After Béla Fleck & the Flecktones, we all headed back to the campsite for
the best night of campsite music of the fest. We played for almost four
hours. We had visitors from other sites join in the music, while others
just sat around to listen to the music. My fingers were raw at the end of
the night, and we were all exhausted. We all headed to bed around 3am except
for a few freaks who went to Drum Camp then...FREAKS I tell ya!!