Marco Benevento

The 3rd Annual Bear Creek Music and Art Festival returns to the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida Nov. 13-15 for three days of music, art, camping and community as fans from all over the nation gather along the banks of the famous Suwannee River for the fall’s final musical celebration.

The peak autumn weekend is packed full of high-energy, upbeat and danceable music highlighted by the festival’s trademark sounds of over fifty performing bands with a dozen groups offering two entire shows.

Marco Benevento is smiling. Do you know why? Is it the thought of his infant daughter? Perhaps the continual climb upward he has made in his career since bursting onto the scene in the late 90's? Or maybe it's the culmination of his most recent musical phase, the release of Me Not Me, which gave him the chance to combine his original magnum opuses with interpretations of the masterpieces of a number of other artists. But, the real reason he's smiling?

On a cold November Sunday night in Philadelphia not too many people were out and about. But at the World Café Live, near the Ivy League campus of the University of Pennsylvania, there was beautiful music happening with or without the crowds. Even the upstairs of venue has a special feel when it's not overly packed. It felt like a jazz night.

Many aspects of last Monday night's show at The Flynn Space in downtown Burlington, Vermont felt as if they had been transplanted from past eras, even different locales.
In 2002, I remember walking down the street that lead to the back of one of the smaller stages at the High Sierra Music Festival late one afternoon and being amazed by the sheet of sound that was slowly encompassing me with every step forward.

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