Good Times Like Nowhere Else Music Festival

We hadn’t been to an outdoor music festival in a long time. In fact the last time was for World Whale Day on Maui. 

So when we headed out Saturday morning for the Nowhere Else Music Festival in Ohio, I wondered if we were too old for this type of event, particularly with the uncertain weather of late May in the Midwest. Would it be too hot, too sunny, stormy, too cool or too buggy after dark? Would I find anything to eat since I have a gluten allergy? Hard to know. So we went prepared for anything and everything.

 I packed enough food for a village and a variety of drinks into a wheeled cooler, several sensible footwear choices, hats, jackets, sunscreen, insect repellant, towels and umbrellas, chairs, and a picnic blanket. We left the love beads and other hippie paraphernalia at home. In truth we have long since lost any  festival paraphernalia, unless you count our camping chairs.

We ended up arriving at the Nowhere Else festival later than we’d intended. A little plumbing emergency at our new home that resulted in some plunging of the toilet and two baskets of wet towels to deal with before our departure seriously delayed our heading out. But it was a nice day, a little overcast and the first real summer heat was upon us. Maybe we should have packed a portable fan?

When we arrived the party was in full swing. Volunteers directed us to park amongst the hundreds of other cars in the grassy fields. Someone had vacated a space just past the VIP parking section. We walked the short distance to the large tent and found two empty chairs with a great view of the stage. 

Larry Groce, of Mountain Stage was performing with his wife. They are both talented musicians and were performing Lyle Lovett’s “If I Had a Boat” to the audience’s obvious delight. We thoroughly enjoyed that song and the rest of the set of bluegrass favorites. Groce, in his bib overalls, and with a folksy style and humor, also served as host throughout much of the day.

Next up were Lily and Madeline. The two lovely sisters have very sweet and harmonious voices and their set was delightful. If I had a wish it would only be that their set had been a bit longer and had interspersed some of their covers of energetically-paced songs from their album.

The next performer, Joe Henry, brought his own distinctive singing and songwriting which soon filled the tent. Joe Henry spoke a little about the magic that has occurred at his recording studio in the basement of the old Garfield house in California. One particularly memorable story concerned trying to keep some of the magic that surrounded the singer, songwriter (as well as Renaissance man) Kris Kristofferson who Henry credited with writing songs about  very specific topics but that then have universal elements. 

Into Joe Henry’s set he was joined by his son and standout saxophone player, Levon Henry. 

Again I wished that this set list had been longer. And had included the song about Willie Mays (“The greatest center-fielder of all time; Stooped by the burden of endless dreams” ) and America spirit (“His and yours and mine.” ), “Our Song”. I hope Joe Henry sang “Our Song” the second day of the festival. So many of the lyrics speak to the angry political season we are enduring:

This was my country
This frightful and this angry land
But it's my right if the worst of it might
Still somehow make me a better man

Later, Karin Berquist and Linford Detweiler, the Over the Rhine hosts of the festival and creators of this music venue, paid particular tribute to Joe Henry, highlighting his contributions in producing two of their beautiful albums, as well as thanking him for introducing them to a number of the musicians performing at the festival. As they noted, Henry has produced music for many musicians, including some in the line-up.

For some reason, Willie Mays was still sitting in my mind, and I could only think how the next group, “Birds of Chicago” certainly fit the bill as all-star musicians. Allison Russell’s full-bodied singing blends beautifully with the outstanding playing in a host of rollicking songs that brought the audience out of their chairs and to their collective feet. Something very unique in the chemistry of this band that made the audience call out for more.

The sky was darkening with an approaching thunderstorm as the next performer, Lucy Wainwright Roche, took the stage. She has a stand-out voice and performed several songs, interspersing a casual telling of her travels as a musician, as introduction to “Deliver Me to the Next Best Western”. 

The ensuing  sudden thunderstorm caused Lucy only the slightest of pauses as the crowd under the tent made way for those who had been outside to find shelter under the big tent. The thought occurred to me, if only the politicians, political parties and this country could be as accommodating as the attendees of this music festival. Made me think of Over the Rhine’s song, “If a Song Could Be President”.

Lucy used the interruption to tell a humorous story about performing in Lithuania to an unreceptive crowd, only to discover that at the mere mention of basketball she was suddenly a hit. So she told of how she had performed a sing-along there of Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart”, substituting “basketball” for the title phrase. Lucy then led the Nowhere crowd in a stirring rendition of that song with the original lyrics. I will confess by this point, as the storm had passed, I headed to the portable toilets but could still participate in the sing along. This was no reluctant crowd.

One might think this line up, particularly “Birds of Chicago” are a hard act to follow. And they would be for ordinary performers. But as the sun set on the Nowhere Else Farm,  Over the Rhine and the Band of Sweethearts closed the day with the unmistakably beautiful vocals of Karin Berquist and their compelling sound and original songwriting to end a magical day. 

A little story-telling and goofiness, in particular, Karin’s encounter of a star-struck June bug, brought the day to a close that no one was quite ready to have end. But there was a promise of another festival day, starting with art, nature hikes and song-writing workshops to be followed by another afternoon and evening of music. 

Ah, if only we had planned to stay both days of the festival--maybe most of my wishes would have been fulfilled.

  

A Musical Week

If someone tells you it’s hard to find good live music in Louisville they haven't been looking in the right places.  In the space of about a week we attended three amazing, foot-stomping concerts, and no doubt missed some other good ones.

First, at the Palace Theater, a week ago Thursday, we were the geezers amongst a happy, mostly young crowd.  The Avett Brothers rocked out at the first of a three-night stand.  The Avett Brothers’ repertoire defies simple categorizations: western swing, bluegrass, Christian hymns, and calypso.  

The crowd seemed to know every word.  Three young women in the row in front of us, cute as any coeds I've seen, bounced, danced and sang along.  I wasn’t a big fan of the Avett Brothers.  At least until now.  The "kids" are ok if this is the music they are rocking to.

On the following Sunday, one of those gorgeous fall days where you can’t bear to stay inside, we went to the riverfront to see the riverboat festival.  A variety of music drifted towards the best viewing areas as we waited to see the riverboats take off on their race.  We didn’t care who won the race.  It was just a great excuse to be outside on a glorious day.

At the main stage we heard some jazz and also a band called the Billy Goat Strut Review, complete with a female torch singer, a slide trombone, a sax, and a washboard, along with the usual instruments, guitars and percussion.  They played some of the music my Mom use to play on the piano.  Some mixture of old-timey, bluegrass and honky-tonk.

As the Billy Goats left the stage and we were getting ready to head back to our car we were almost run over by the March Madness Marching Band from Lexington.  They marched right through the crowd.  The band members, dressed as pirates and gypsies, played all sorts of outlandish instruments, danced and marched.  Very fun.

To wrap up the week of musical fun we went to the Clifton Center this past Thursday to hear the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Rhiannon Giddens belted out Waterboy, an Odetta song, covered Leadbelly, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Jean Ritchie, as well as singing a foreign language song, perhaps in Gaelic. The Carolina Chocolate Drops also did Sandy Boys, Hit ‘em Up Style, and Snowden’s Jig (Genuine Negro Jig).

The “Drops” played a variety of instruments, including an 1859 replica banjo with an amazing sound as well as bones, some made of wood and some of actually bone, which brought an authenticity to the minstrel songs. Rhiannon talked about the history of minstrel music and how the banjo was one of the ways African Americans had shared music with white Americans.

The memorable opening act, Birds of Chicago joined the encore, which included Read ‘em John. By then, Rhiannon also had invited a tall, thin young man, dressed in bib overalls, who had been among the concert-goers dancing in the aisles, to join them on stage.  He said his friends called him “Long legs” and he danced like George Clooney in “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?”, only better.

“Wow!” the first word out of my mouth at the end of the concert.  My husband simultaneously said the same thing, as did the friendly stranger who had been sitting next to me.  We all were standing on our feet applauding after the encore, wishing for more.  

The next day, as my spouse and I ate breakfast, we both were singing the words to one song that had wormed its way into our ears:  “Corn bread, butter beans and you across the table…”

I capped the week of foot-stomping music by buying my own pair of foot-stomping boots for our next concert.  

*This column was written with significant contributions from my spouse who forty five years ago this Halloween took me on a first date to listen to a concert. He now has taken me to more concerts than I can count.