Festivals

"There's a garish, yellow thing in the sky we've never seen here at Floydfest before," remarked guitarist and vocalist Jeb Puryear of Floydfest veterans, Donna the Buffalo.   "I think we'll call it the sun."  This year, among several additions to Floyd, VA's near perfect annual music festival in the Blue Ridge Mountains, was agreeable weather.  Though the sky remained cloudy for most of the weekend and spilled a slight, ten-minute rain in remembrance of last year's downpour, festival goers celebrated the fifth anniversary of Floydfest with kites, sunglasses and closed um

The annual Fingerlakes Grassroots Festival held in Trumansburg, NY just north of Ithaca was an all-you-can-eat buffet of sounds, sights, and activities.  True to the nature of a buffet, if a concert goer tried to take in everything; including over 60 bands (and several collaborations between them), the various activities, dance troupes, and food they would surely make themselves sick and very very exhausted.

The Gathering of the Vibes have announced the addition of legendary Grateful Dead drummers Mickey Hart and Billy Kreutzmann performing as The Rhythm Devils at this year's 11th annual music and arts festival. This will mark only the 2nd appearance of the Rhythm Devils in over thirty years.

Well, the fourth annual 10K Festival is under our belts now, with a Saturday line up that equaled Thursdays and Fridays. Keller Williams show was so packed they had to turn people away, and Trey's show was awesome with no Phish music in sight. (Phil in fact did not stay around to jam indecently.) He played some new stuff, a couple off his solo album, closed out the show with a couple of covers, Won't Get Fooled Again by the Who and Get Back from the Beatles. I queried a lot of people over the three days I was there, and everyone said the same thing - it was just a great festival.

Good morning from day three of the 10k festival in Detroit Lakes Minnesota. Friday's line up matched or exceeded the expectations created by the first day of entertainment, and went down as a banner day in jamband music.

The 16th Annual Finger Lakes GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance will be held from July 20-23 at the Trumansburg Fairgrounds in Trumansburg, NY.  This year's headliners include hit country singer John Anderson, politically conscious reggae hip-hoppers Michael Franti & Spearhead, African music legend Thomas Mapfumo & Blacks Unlimited, Rajasthani gypsy-Indian fusion band

Thanks for waiting to read about the best part of Wakarusa! The best three shows of the festival lay here in the second half of the review. In this section, I want to tell you which bands earned my top three ribbons of the festival.  Please keep in mind that I could not possibly see all of the bands that played, although I did try to see most.

Bela Fleck & the Flecktones

"There's nothing better than a music festival in the heartland of the country," said Jeff Austin of Yonder Mountain String Band on the festival's last day.  Even though I can think of some things that are better, there is a lot of truth to this statement.  Despite its sputtering start with heightened police threats, and at times clueless security, the third

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