The festival grounds were set up a bit different this year from last. To begin with, they'd put up a big circus tent. Good idea! Last year's weather had been hot, and the week before this year's festival they'd had record highs, actually hitting 100 F. So the tent was a great shelter from the sun. Of course, this is a very dry, almost comfortable heat, so that 100-degree figure is misleading by an easterner's standards. As it turned out, the weather broke the day before the festival and was beautiful for the whole three days! Unlike a lot of festivals, the tent wasn't set up 80 yards away from the stage; in fact, the stage was under the tent too, up against one end. So no one suffered the usual festival sunburn (unless they wanted to). The crowd seemed nearly double from last year's too. And as usual, the Shasta District Fairgrounds were impeccably clean and tidy, with plenty of "indoor plumbing", shade, hot breakfast available, etc. They even had great food concessions under the tent, barbequed chicken, tri-tip beef, baked potatoes, salad, etc. Shucks, it would've been a great camping weekend even without all the great music!
And what about the music, huh? This year's lineup featured Lou Reid and Carolina, Nashville Bluegrass Band, High Mountain String Band, Sidesaddle, Sam Hill, the Red Dirt Bullies (whom we had first seen in Chico a year or two earlier), ourselves, and some others I know I've forgotton and to whom I apologize. It was good to hear Sidesaddle again. I'd never heard HMSB before. They were quite interesting. Also Sam Hill. LR and Carolina did their usual energetic show, and NBB was both musically great and funny. All of the acts were good, and also very creative and entertaining. So far the Shasta Serenade Festival is running 2 out of 2 in that department!
We had some interesting "experiences". F'rinstance, Paul T won a drawing, his prize being a free hotdog, this after he'd spent the whole weekend looking for corndogs and concluding that you couldn't get them anywhere in California. In jest, we mentioned his quest from the stage, and for the rest of the weekend people kept coming up to him to suggest where he might find some. Someone even suggested (in all seriousness) that he try eating his newly-won hotdog while holding a box of cornflakes in his other hand.
We had the chance to visit with some of the other bands this weekend.
Sharon spent time backstage swapping tofu recipes with Roland White. At
one point, Pat Enright came up all excited about how he and Gene Libbea
had taped up the doors to their van with "Crime Scene" tape while Stuart
Duncan was asleep inside... (Yeesh, the things musicians will do to
amuse themselves while on the road!)
At one point during our Saturday evening set, Joe Carr came on during our show and pretended to harrass Paul T, so Paul handed Joe the pick and let him (Joe) play the right-hand while he (Paul) chorded with the left. Then Joe, umm, shall we say, "re-tuned" Paul M's banjo in the middle of a song. (Almost made the banjo sound better! Only thing was, though, he wouldn't say which string he'd tweaked. See banjo joke #257b.) That's okay, we got even with them. Joe Carr and Alan Munde were the next act up, and you know, Paul T and I just couldn't let them play with their mics mal-adjusted so we "fixed" them in the middle of one of their songs. Can't say it sounded better or worse though.
One of the most interesting events, and certainly a first for us, was a performance with a piper. We closed our Gospel show singing Amazing Grace accompanied by bagpipes. The audience loved it. (You just don't hear traditional bluegrass bagpipes very often these days.)
Another nice event, though one backstage and not shared with the audience, was the presentation of a birthday cake for Tracy. (Happy B'day, Tracy! And thanks for the friendship.)
There was plenty of great picking out amidst the RV's. We did a little on Saturday night, with Paul M pulling out a borrowed fiddle. (Yes, he does fiddle a little, but not on-stage, at least not yet.) Unfortunately we couldn't stay out too late because we had to do an early Gospel show the next morning. As it was, we still didn't get to bed until 1:30 AM. (yawn)
All good things come to an end eventually, so on Sunday afternoon we headed south back down the valley. South of Anderson the highway climbs a small rise. Looking back from that rise, we saw Mt. Shasta standing proudly, holding its head over the surrounding hills, and like a beacon throwing its beautiful light out to the world. What a glorious sight it was. Apparently we hadn't seen it when we arrived because the air had been so humid and hazy. Sure couldn't miss it on Sunday though, a fitting end to a great weekend. On Monday morning we took Paul T to the airport, then Sharon and Paul and I drove into San Francisco to play tourist. We walked through Chinatown, then across the Golden Gate Bridge (both directions). SF is a beautiful city, especially when viewed from the GGB. Then we drove up the coastal highway to Reys Point, turned inland through Laurel Canyon Road to Peteluma, over to Sonoma (What do they do with all those grapes anyway, I wonder?), then back to Napa. Tuesday morning found us stuck in traffic on I-80, but eventually we got to the airport in time for our flights. And here we are, at 39,000 ft. above someplace, north of someplace, east of someplace. When is the next show?