Local Music Festivals

Why are local music festivals so great? I mean festivals that feature live, acoustic, old-timey, folk/bluegrass music. You could cue in line for hours to pay a bunch of money to sit inside and watch a pop idol sing something that actually sounded better in the recorded version. Modern music is infinitely better recorded or "canned," primarily, I think because of "overlay." When Alanis Morisette and Kelly Clarkson harmonize, they harmonize to themselves. You just can't do that live in performance.

But old-time music (and classical chamber music, I might add in another post) is best outside, alive, in the summer, with local bands. There won't be police and plastic fencing. Just people sitting on the grass with their kids, dogs, and coolers. Just people standing on the edges of the crowd to smoke. Just random people dancing and little kids throwing those neon-glowing rings in the air. Just the Methodist church selling peach icecream. Just the one booth selling lemon-shakeup and elephant ears. And the guy who sells bodhrans and harmonicas. And the smell of mosquito repellant.

Here are a few favorites, that I first saw at a local festival.

Two sisters LEELA & ELLIE GRACE clogging:

or here (a souped up version of the same dance and some of their banjo/violin skills . . .)

SPECIAL CONSENSUS playing part of "Lord, Lead Me Down the Righteous Pathway"

UNCLE EARL playing the "D & P Blues"