Booker T. Jones photo by Tom Adams.
Rather than headline intimate venues for less pay, touring acts today are choosing to play large music festivals with radius clauses that prevent them from playing again in the area for several months. Many casual music fans (i.e. 90% of the population) love the chance to sample tons of name acts in a park for three days and such events as ACL Fest, Lollapalooza, Coachella, Bonnaroo and dozens of new imitators are flourishing. Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promoters, paid $125 million for half of Austin-based C3 Presents to gain a stronghold in the festival market.
But for diehard fans of the music- not the party or the people watching- seeing bands in such a setting can be tiring, frustrating, unfulfilling and way overcrowded. It’s all about money, not music. Beautiful people, not a cerebral connection with sound. There’s no place to park and they won’t let you put that beer on layaway.
On my current sojourn to the eastern part of the United States, I found a music festival that provided a nearly opposite experience to the EDM-induced headaches of ACL Fest. The Green River Festival in Greenfield, Mass. featured many of the same acts we’ve seen at ACL, including Steve Earle, Punch Brothers, Valerie June, tUnEyArDs, Lydia Loveless, Milk Carton Kids, Elephant Revival, Red Baraat and so on. But I didn’t have to deal with 80,000 fans a day to see them, as a sellout at Green River, whose site is even bigger than Zilker Park’s Great Lawn, was 15,000 over three days. This fest is closer to Old Settler’s in feel and bookings, but there was so much more room. And plenty of paved parking and shuttle buses.
My parking pass had me waved through the checkpoints to a space about 100 yards from the main entrance. Everyone, even uniformed police officers, had a smile on their faces, I’m not kidding. I was running a little late on the Saturday and was hoping to catch at least the last two or three songs from Langhorne Slim– a roots rocker with an acoustic guitar- but incoming was so smooth I got there just as he was starting. Before he played a note, he talked about the setting for a couple minutes. “Wow, this is Massachusetts?” he asked, with a green mountain behind him. “Please forgive my ignorance when it comes to geography, but I didn’t think there were parts of this state as beautiful as this. You guys have got a groovy scene going on here.” The audience gave back a lot of energy, even during the solo acoustic segment that set up a barnburning finale.
To tell you the truth, I was a little miffed that I was given just a common wristband when I checked in. After all, I was covering this fest for a major music industry publication. “Where’s the media tent?” I asked, hoping to straighten this out after Langhorne. The woman of about 19 looked at me with a blank face. I texted the publicist and he came back with the news that there wasn’t a media area. There wasn’t even a VIP section. Backstage there were only musicians and crew and the radio DJs who announced the acts. Where were all the rich assholes from the sponsors? There was no corporate branding at this festival. I saw only two golf carts all weekend.
There were also no video screens at this anti-ACL because you could walk right up to the front of the stage and see anybody you wanted to up close. The majority of the 40-65 year old crowd was content to sit in their chairs or under umbrellas (which were positioned at the very back), so when I got there 20 minutes early to get a good spot to see tUnEyArDs, who are like the Roches playing tribute to “George of the Jungle,” it was unnecessary. I wandered off after about four songs, then came back 10 minutes later and got my same spot.
I would’ve loved to have seen Rubblebucket, the weirdo Brooklyn dance band who always gets the whole crowd shakin’ they asses, but I don’t like to drive in the dark, especially in a strange land, so I left early. Heard the next day that they dee-stroid!
I’m not saying all the music was great. Booker T. Jones, the act I was most eager to see, padded a 30-minute set into an hour and 15 minutes, playing guitar as often as he did the Hammond B3, and doing such overdone tunes as “Mannish Boy.” He gave moderately-talented son Ted way too much spotlight time and didn’t really kick into gear until he ended his set with a flurry of Booker T and the MG’s material. The crowd ate it up anyway. ALL of it.
The worst thing was that each act did their soundcheck right before they went on, so you lost the impact of seeing Valerie June (whom the announcer compared to Sister Rosetta Tharpe because he obviously hadn’t heard of Elizabeth Cotten) come onstage to sing because she’d been saying “testing” and whooping for 10 minutes before her set. Not a technical person, I’ll admit, but after 40 years of reviewing shows I still don’t understand why they have to change the soundboard settings for every fucking act. Every stage should just have a set of drums nailed to the floor. Use them or play solo acoustic!
No freak hugs at Green River Fest.
It’s the little things that made Green River the best music festival I’ve ever attended while not on LSD. The Tibetan dumpling stand. The artists’ market that displayed true artistry (I bought my hostess in the Berkshires a necklace with her favorite word and definition clipped from an 1823 dictionary). The lack of sound bleed from three stages that were acres and acres apart from each other. But as with the towns and cities I’m exploring on my “Homeless and Hopeful” tour of the East Coast, it’s the people that truly define a place. And one of the folks at Green River Fest, which is put on by Signature Sounds records of Northhampton, MA (the home of Lake Street Dive), who best exemplified what made the weekend special was a little boy of about six or seven. This smiling moptop had a stick tied to his back and at the top of it, just over his head, was a sign that said “Free Hugs.” We’ve seen similar signs at ACL, Fun Fun Fun, SXSW and the like, but usually it’s held by some sweaty hulk of questionable motivation. A person you’re free to avoid.
But this little angel in Western Massachusetts was hugging strangers with such gleeful innocence you couldn’t help but smile. “Hey, ‘free hugs,’” I called to him and as he turned around, I asked if I could take his picture. Then when I was done, he came up and hugged me.
Polaris on the second stage at GRF.
It turned out that the major music industry publication didn’t want my report. It was tentative going in and I never heard back, so I was free to go back to the Berkshires without obligation. And I did, but came back the next day. That’s how much I enjoyed attending the Green River Festival as a civilian, when I had pretty much sworn off fests where I didn’t have to work.
Langhorne Slim
