Having just returned from the 2014 Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival I would like to share some thoughts.
1. The Deadly Gentlemen continue to be deadly gentlemen and have a new bass player with an amazing voice.
2. If you can’t put down your phone while you’re in a PORT-A-POTTY …you might need therapy. I mean really, who wants to be in there one second longer than necessary?
3. The Barefoot Movement were ON FIRE! This 4 piece band played here at Chestnut House Concerts on Memorial Day 2013 and they’ve developed marvelously as writers, performers and have become a cohesive band. They played three times on three different stages during the festival including the main stage on Thursday afternoon. Of course Tim and I had tears in our eyes as the crowd of thousands gave a standing ovation.
4. James McIver (banjo player for Cold Chocolate) is on tour with the band while completing his dissertation for his PhD in Physics from MIT – meanwhile, after studying the schedule extensively, Tim and I couldn’t remember which stage we were headed to next for more than 5 minutes – let alone which band was playing there.
5. Awesome bands come out of Boston’s Berklee College of Music. We first saw Laney Jones & the Lively Spirits a year ago at Grey Fox and this year we were wowed by Twisted Pine.
6. The woman seated behind the sound booth who kept telling the sound engineers to sit down so she could see …just doesn’t have a clue.
7. Not to my surprise – the audience members either loved or hated Gangastagrass. I won’t say my preference…but Tim did find it curious that we accidentally ended up “Astrograss for Kids – The Colored Pencil Factory” CD instead of the “Broken Hearts and Stolen Money” Gangastagrass CD he wanted.
8. Cold Chocolate played at the Creekside Stage on Saturday. Before the band started the guy to the left of me told the woman he was with “Cold Chocolate is up next and I was told I’ve got to see them”. The woman on my right told her friend “I don’t want to leave until we’ve seen Cold Chocolate – I’ve heard great things about them”. They both were right, this band is a lot of fun. Ethan and Kirsten switch on taking the lead, they do mostly originals with a few covers in the mix.
I hope you can join us on Tuesday (July 22). It’s not bluegrass – Cold Chocolate is in what I call the progressive folk/string band genre. Ethan Robbins – guitar, vocals; Kirsten Lamb – upright bass, vocals; James McIver – banjo, vocals and Ariel Bernstein – drums. Potluck at 6, Show at 7. All donations go to the band.
I’ll even rustle up some cold dessert. I don’t know, perhaps chocolate?
