I’m old enough now that being told on Tuesday that I am going to cover the Northlands Music & Arts Festival on Friday feels rushed. Gone are the carefree days of the early ’00s. Back then, I went on tour with one day’s notice—without a tent. I woke up on crushed-oyster-shell gravel next to my car the day after a String Cheese show in Little Rock. Ironically, the days of lower-back pain were still a decade away! So am I nostalgic or beginning a mid-life crisis? Or both? Are they one and the same?

This life lived until its mid-point makes me lucky enough to have seen Jerry more than a few times and to be labeled a 1.0er, but I remember the weekend when what I understood about the music I loved all changed: the summer of 2002. That’s when I went to my first festival—my first true jamband festival. When I was in Murfreesboro that June, my eyes were opened to so many bands. I felt like I was right where I was supposed to be, and so was every one of those artists. Bands I’d heard. Bands I hadn’t heard of. Bands that I’d seen. Bands that I didn’t know I had to see. We all saw the planets align together.

As I got closer to the fledgling jamband scene over the next couple of years, it felt like things changed into a race to the top. The temporary void with Phish off the road and the nearly decade-old reality of the post-Jerry world made the jamband scene feel a bit more like a meat market. Every band was trying to sell themselves, hoping they’d get to fill the slot emptied by the scene’s most notable absences.

Festivals felt more like cage matches. What could each band do to climb to the top? Who and what would they sacrifice along the way? Joy can leave music when you start to see it this way.

Maybe that’s why it’s been over a decade since I’ve made it to a festival like this. But when the call to go to Northlands became my reality, I spent the weekend feeling like it was 2002 all over again.

Friday

Friday afternoon I made my way across the Green Mountains into New Hampshire in time to see festival stalwart Lettuce on the main stage. I was expecting entry to be somewhat painful, but as I pulled into the lot and had an unobstructed path to the media tent, it seemed I might have overestimated the size of this festival. Yet the quality of hospitality was up there with the big boys, and fifteen minutes after I turned at a small wooden sign that said “Northlands,” the music that was the soundtrack during my arrival and check-in turned into my first set. Of course, Lettuce didn’t disappoint with their skater funk. Flat brims and New Orleans are an unlikely duo, but the music that Lettuce weaves under their outer leaves shows you that the heart of this band matches its appearance. They’ve grafted classic riffs from the Queen City with modern ska and hip-hop to create a very unique sound.

The vegetarian buffet of music continued with Eggy. I’ll admit that, as much as I’ve heard and read about these upstarts, I had not seen them before today. Satellite-radio recordings only tell you so much; the live show fills in the rest. Eggy is taking the psychedelia of the early 2000s and bathing it in their influences since. The band takes slow and appropriately funky approaches to jam lift-off, and it pays off with tight segues. Within the jam, Eggy shows that each part of the band has the chops to lead and the sight to navigate. There is no need to fake it. The jams sound like compositions; the compositions reach so far into the key signatures, they sound like improvisation. And the sing-along among the 40-plus crowd during CSN’s “Southern Cross,” with Holly Bowling sitting in on keys, was a nice cherry on top.

The evening’s final course was two sets of The String Cheese Incident. As you may have surmised, this was the band whose tour I became part of as a noob on the road. Now, a return to their live show nearly twenty years later created a moment of trepidation. But spinning around while dancing helped me see the smiles among the crowd. Once again, the artists here connected with their audience with a presence that was comfortable and creative. Cheese’s mix of old—and, well, actually mainly old—tunes made an easy re-entry for me. Kyle Hollingsworth reminded me during “Lost” that I was ready to go on tour with any and all projects he was part of. “Shantytown” brought me back to Horning’s Hideout a lifetime ago. All the while, SCI bridged a three-channeled chasm of bluegrass, EDM, and reggae, willingly navigating it for all of us to enjoy. Kanika Moore and Holly Bowling’s sit-in with Cheese on The Allman Brothers’ “Whipping Post” was a surprise highlight of the day. While “Whipping Post” can be a feature slot for any vocalist, Kanika embodied the ABB classic and captivated everyone on and off stage. The Cheese of old—full of non-established stars wanting to shine brighter as they rose to new heights—is gone. In its place is a mixed palette of harmonious comfort, and the audience is the beneficiary.

The night was a sandwich of the old and new. The overall scene felt like it had been frozen in time many years ago. This festival was proving to be not just about great music, but a great feeling—knowing we were in the right place. The distinction between what was and what is was being blurred by music that was present in the moment.

Saturday

I was so excited when I remembered a couple of weeks ago that my old roommate from Steamboat, and Cheese running mate at the turn of the century, was flying out for Northlands. I can also say with sincerity that I am glad we camped apart. The two-stage setup of this festival was creating near-seamless set changes, and a day starting at noon and ending around midnight could prove to be just what I needed to get to bed at a decent hour. Not to mention the unfortunate reality of having to sleep in my car Friday night, having chosen to forgo setting up my camp, instead getting in front of Lettuce as fast as I could upon arrival.

So Saturday I climbed out of my back seat, stretched my back, and took stock. It was nearly 10 a.m., and I wanted to have camping secured before music began. Kudos to the organization of the employees and volunteers at Northlands. They were still manning the fenced area around the VIP glamping, so it was clear I wasn’t going to make it in with my buddy (again, this was a good thing in hindsight), but the campground wasn’t so vast that I felt like I was going to end up separated from the scene. Actually, a few minutes after I woke up, I saw a Phan I knew from my local disc-golf league, and within minutes I had my tent set up in his cul-de-sac of a section, full of shade and a temporary disc-golf basket, all within feet of where security had kindly stuck me and my car a few hours before. I was home.

But a festival like this provides no rest for the weary, and after a hot breakfast from a vendor on the way in, I made my way to the festival grounds.

What Northlands lacked in frills, they more than made up for with the quality of their two-stage lineup. Chicago-based funk band Sneezy started off the day with their brand of Midwestern arkestra, complete with costumes, color, and flair for days. This was a perfect call to arms for the nearby campgrounds, as nothing was too far of a walk from the festival grounds, nor out of earshot of hard-turning, horn-driven funk. Sneezy wound through a set peculiarly balanced between lyrics about food, lyrics about sex, and somehow lyrics about both. Despite having so many channels and suffering the opening-slot mix, Sneezy shouted and blew us all to the festival grounds, pulling in a great audience for the first band of the day.

Karina Rykman, planting her freak flag on the day’s first mainstage set, is a star in the making. A power trio of Karina on bass, a guitarist, and a drummer lends itself to the original Gov’t Mule, astounding those in attendance with the amount of sound they can produce. But don’t confuse Karina’s trio with a blues band. These kids came up in the ’80s. Synths, progressive rhythms, the birth of punk, and hip-hop accompanied Karina’s every movement through New York City while she was growing up. This cacophony produced a sound that is progressive, challenging, gritty, and intelligent at the same time. Karina will continue to ascend and will be headlining festivals someday soon.

Daniel Donato has spent the last few years endearing himself to the old heads with his love of the Dead and his Nashville-born skills from his days busking years ago. Today’s set was more cosmic than country, and the mainstage-sized crowd on the second stage confirmed that I wasn’t the only head, old or young, who appreciated what this pair of ten-gallon hats on guitar and bass could do when matched up with a funk drummer and southern-rock pianist. And if you weren’t convinced that my opinion of Karina Rykman is shared by others in the scene—when Daniel’s set ended, Karina was still greeting fans and taking selfies, even after Daniel took his bows.

Seamless sets require tough decisions, and today’s Kitchen Dwellers set on the mainstage was the casualty of my personal needs. After getting into the pit to photograph these guys, I had to make my way out of the festival grounds and back to my campsite to get ready for the rest of the day. Since my campground was right behind the mainstage, I could hear their jam-infused take on poppy newgrass and was sad to miss sit-ins during “Dixie Chicken.” Another time, Kitchen Dwellers—just not today.

But, ahh, Soulive. Another band that has stood the test of time (of whom this weekend was full) returned to my audio lexicon with one amazing performance. This jazz-funk trio took the stage and unapologetically introduced themselves before launching right into their own combination of cool and funky jazz mixed with their New England influence. That’s right—they’re from the Northeast. Check with AI. The wings on the stage were packed with admiring musicians. This is a band that bands come to see. But this isn’t easy music. It’s not for the faint of heart only cruising past the stage this afternoon. You need to commit. Yet the sonic reward when you do is unmatched by most. It’s like falling through the narrow part of an hourglass to be rewarded with so much unknown space—the unexpected blessing with this group. They teased “Femi,” they covered Santana, but you had to be in it to feel it. I felt.

There are only a few things still in my life from my Mountain of Venus road-managing days, and one of them is Shawn Eckels. Shawn was the lead guitar player in another bar band at the time, and they were equally underappreciated. But Shawn could write complex and beautiful songs and had a voice made by the gods of rock themselves. Just like MOV didn’t ascend to the heights they deserved, Shawn’s band Speakeasy also flamed out before this generation of jamband fans could appreciate it. But like a phoenix rising from the ashes of mids, Shawn was given new life after getting the call from Andy Frasco to fill in for his normal guitarist. That was over ten years ago, and he’s been Andy Frasco’s VP of the U.N. ever since. Reconnecting with Shawn—even if just for a few minutes—was one of the unexpected highlights of the weekend for me. He and Andy have developed a repertoire, like a ringmaster and his prized lion, with both of them sharing both roles. I am happy to see that the pendulum has swung a bit for this band. They are no longer as focused on dick jokes and discomfort and are writing music that speaks to the emotions of today. But don’t get the wrong idea—Andy still knows how to make the audience cringe as quickly as he knows how to get us on our feet and dancing in an unbridled way only a true entertainer could create. Too many sit-ins to note them all, starting with Krasno on one of the first tunes, the addition of a raucous version with Allie Kral (who has shed her demure YMSB persona), and what appeared to be an absolutely wasted bassist stalking Kanika Moore during her sit-in all combined for a no-holds-barred set that could have ended with nothing other than a full-audience hora.

Are you as obsessed with Vulfpeck as I am? If not, perhaps you’ll want to skip my fanboying over Cory Wong. When he is the bandleader rather than one part of the greater sum, you can hear what he brings to Vulfpeck’s songwriting. But that is clearly a group effort. And sure, he can solo. But his strength is his incomparable rhythm guitar that feels driven, tight, and sharp. His cred as a bandleader, with changes shown to the rest of the band through quick body undulations, is hard to wrap my brain around. It feels like he wrote every lick for every instrument and is assembling them like a build-a-bear—full of love and unexpected turns and covered with a comforting outer skin. He lives in major chords that fall softly on your ears, all the while driving the band like a conductor—not of a band, but of a train. With his leadership coming through in ways beyond just soloing, you realize that sometimes the mightiest sword is the one that spends most of its time in its sheath.

The day ended with jam vets moe. As expected, their jams were fluid. Their segues were better than anticipated. There was darkness in their jams that gave their sound dimension and size—something I had forgotten since I last saw them in Arkansas, circa 2004. Sometimes the jams of newer bands are either all about the dark places the music can take you or, conversely, rely solely on the dopamine receptors of certain keys and phrasing. But moe. is from a bygone era when bands had to learn to do it all because there were very few niche jambands to fill specific roles. As the sun set on this second full day of the festival, I realized that in today’s jam scene, bands are celebrating the crevices they fill, not using them as footholds as they climb to higher overlooks or fall into the unknown.

Sunday

In addition to my old friend from Steamboat, a couple of newer couples were also among my friends at Northlands. We ran into each other each day and spent some time walking around together on Sunday. Northlands was small enough to keep you running into the people you knew, and I appreciated that feeling of intimacy as I stared the final day in the face. The weather was even cooler—although it had never been too hot all weekend—making for a comfortable day spent in front of the stages. We walked in to see a bluegrass quartet having a renegade set just inside the festival grounds. Their bluegrass covers of Zeppelin subsided when the maestro Holly Bowling took the stage for her solo set. She’d sat in on so many sets already, but here was her chance to shine in the midday sun. How quickly I forgot that what thrust Holly onto our scene was her note-for-note transcription of the Tahoe “Tweezer” many years ago. Holly brought the orchestral tissue out of the Phish improvisation and turned it into a symphony—her classical-heavy style perfect for transcribed Phish alone on a piano. We can get the funk in the jams with a full band supported by a rhythm section that can hold down that funk line. But when you’re one woman on a stage with hundreds of people in front of you, featuring the complexity of each tune, you play the Phish catalogue! Those classical chops made her covers of “The Horse” and “Silent in the Morning” beautiful and new. Then she turned her musical gaze toward the Dead’s songbook, and improvisations on a “Bird Song” / “Althea” mash-up were bright and dynamic, drawing attention to the beautifully composed sections, before Holly showed her appreciation of the crowd with a set-closing return to Phish via a cover of “Waste.”

After the big sound—albeit standard jamband fare—of Tand’s mainstage set, we turned our gaze back to the second stage for LaMP. This trio is on so many people’s radar because of the other bands its members are in, but LaMP is filling a slot vacated by MMW years ago, regardless of what other music its players are making. Hard-stop, note-filled jazz. Complex changes that can be frustrating if you’re not in it for the long haul. And one of the first Sly Stone teases I caught all weekend—hey, hey, hey, hey.

I missed most of Neighbor with my midday reset, this time consisting of a great peanut-butter smoothie (I know, right?) boosting my protein before rejoining the action with lespecial. Their lowercase insistence does not diminish their sound, which stood out from the expected slots with a harder-rock vibe. The aggressive head-bobbing—bordering on wook head-banging—let me know that the crowd was there for it. lespecial’s jams reminded me of the psychedelic paradigm through which I have considered Tool. There is improvisation, but it is tight and fast, with unexpected time signatures slicing cleanly into one another. Brendan Bayliss came out to jam and sing on one of their originals, a nod to how they are viewed within the community. Bayliss kept up on all of the transitions, and Kanika Moore’s sit-in on an original cemented this band on my “go see these guys again” list.

I applaud those bands who are making the Grateful Dead’s songbook their own. The Grateful Dead canon deserves originality. It’s not a group of songs that needs to be reperformed exclusively; they need to be redone, even reorganized, with different instruments carrying the load. Terrapin Family Band clearly has a foot in the past with the Dead’s music that they are bringing to the masses, but they are breathing new life—their life—into the charts, making the music feel fresh and new again. Even the slight addition of a Hammond by Jason Crosby makes the music fun, which was a hallmark of the original Grateful Dead experience.

But as soon as the afternoon zigged into expected jamband fare, it zagged again when Lotus took the side stage for the day’s penultimate set. Lotus has been around, been through lineups, and been at nearly every East Coast festival I’ve attended (and remember, folks—it’s been a decade!), but they still deliver their signature blend of electronic sound, hammered home these days by the barrage of notes coming from Tim Palmieri’s guitar. As a vet of multiple jambands, Tim has never relented from what he does. He leaves his signature on whatever project he is in. A student of Trey’s machete years, he never leaves a note out.

And then there was Umphrey’s. Thinking back to that year when the true extent of the jamband scene lurched into my world, it was Umphrey’s performance at Bonnaroo in 2002 and their subsequent tour that summer that both showed me the strength of these musicians and the strength of good marketing at that crossroads in the jamband scene. UM saw the slot they could fill, and with their Bonnaroo set, so many of us heard them for the first time. In this infancy of social media, it was word of mouth that left Murfreesboro and traveled in all directions through the country, spreading word of what UM had shown us all. For the rest of that summer, when they came to your town, they played for five dollars and typically played three sets. They saw their shot and they knew their music. Key met lock once the right management was put in place. And now? Sure, they never quite made it where the top of the top reside, but who cares? They have carved out their place in the scene and continue to innovate the jam world with never-ending segues coming from complex rhythms, harmonies, and fun that keep the crowd enthralled until the last note. But tonight’s last note would not have been fitting to fall to anyone other than the weekend’s MVP, Kanika Moore. While I’ve mentioned some of her sit-ins throughout the weekend, I have yet to note her costume changes for each set—hair, sunglasses, and face paint included. Every time she took the stage, we knew the set’s highlight was only a few measures away. With UM, she did not disappoint, making AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way to the Top” her own. Kanika, it’s not too long a way to the top for you—you arrived this weekend.

I too arrived this weekend—perhaps re-arrived. The future of the jam scene is in good hands, not because any of these bands are going to skyrocket to fame, but because they all bring so much individuality to their sound. The bands showed so much comfort with who they are and where they are—qualities accentuated by amazing booking and top-tier stage management by the folks at Northlands. It was serendipitous that, on the last day of the festival, Northlands was honoring tickets from the unfortunately canceled Bonnaroo of 2025. I mean, Northlands already stole the vibe that made those early ’Roos so good—might as well take their customers too. See you next year, Northlands.