Green River Festival 2018, Friday night!

I was a little disappointed this year when the Green River Festival lineup was first announced.  I kept hoping they’d add some acts I was really excited about, but excitement was slow to come.  They announced Josh Ritter, Michael Franti, and Old Crow Medicine Show as the nightly closers early on … one half-exciting act out of three is better than none.  And then they did add acts like Robert Earl Keen, Amy Helm, Chris Smither, I’m With Her … and Marco Benevento!

OK, I was excited though it could have been a lot more exciting.  But how do you follow the great acts of the last few festivals?  I and the others in our group realized that this might be a down year, but that was no reason for us to be down.  We were all psyched for another great GRF and it finally rolled around on the calendar.

There had been some fuckups about accommodations and tickets this year, like our hotel going belly-up on us (the ex-Rodeway Inn in Greenfield, which didn’t even have the courtesy to tell us it had died) and some in our group not getting tickets to all three days.  But we got rooms at the Hampton Inn in Brattleboro, which turned out well, and we had the chance to give endless shit to those who had missed tickets!

Worked Friday morning at our new office in Waltham and then back-tracked to Woburn to pick up Sarah and Dave, who had spent the night.  We threw everything in the car and took off for The West soon after noon on a hot, hot day that presaged a hot, hot weekend.

Got out to Greenfield and cruised into town where we had lunch at a pretty busy People’s Pint.  BBQ chicken wrap for me and a couple of IPAs and similar stuff for S&D.  Then we stopped for beer and supplies (Ginger Libation at Ryan and Casey’s), and drove straight-away over to the Festival.

The crowds had been so intense there the last few years that we figured the only way to get great seats for the great Friday lineup was to get there early, and we were right.  Our timing was great and we were in line behind just a few cars, and then got our good parking space and jumped into line, 20th or so.  The gates opened soon and we were on our way … but wait!

For years the GRF was “no alcohol” and they pretty much turned a blind eye to people slipping in cans or bottles of this or that in their coolers as long as they were discreet.  Then they realized that they had become immensely popular and had to become more of a big league Festival … another case of success ruining things … and they got the super-cool Berkshire Brewing Company a license and had them sell beer.  But people continued to smuggle stuff in and you knew it was going to happen that eventually they’d have to crack down more.  They announced that this year they were really going to inspect bags, and they did a pretty good job of balancing this with letting the long lines of people flow.  There were still a few people who smuggled in (just guessing here actually) mixed drinks in orange juice bottles.  But they were plastic!

And you've gotta understand what time we're living in.  One of the (disappearing?) charms of the GRF is that it's so mellow.  You (and your kids) can walk around barefoot with not a second thought!  The big rule was that you weren't allowed to bring in glass bottles and I'm all in favor of people policing themselves not to do this.  I'm all in favor of parties too, but seeing people smoke pot at their seats with kids (and other non-smokers) around last year was kind of a shock (didn't happen this year, perhaps because the designated pot-smoking area was open again).  I hope GRF stays mellow.

Anyway, got in soon after a bit of delay for inspection and grabbed great seats at our regular position from the stage, but to the right of the electrical conduit.  Yow!  It was the GRF again, people were streaming in, we were getting beer tokens and inspecting the used records.  Friend Steve the security volunteer was there again, and life was just perfect.

The lineup for the Main Stage (rebranded as the “Tea Guys Stage”) was pretty good, as I say, but I planned to head downhill for the Latin Stage (the whilom Three Rivers Stage which is now the Dean’s Beans Stage) at some point.  Here’s what I saw:

Twisted Pine – This band of young Berklee products has come a long way and has re-invented themselves several times since we first saw them.  They had the same lineup as last year (Kathleen Parks with a lot of makeup, Rachel Sumner looking as young-Kathy-Kallick as ever, Dan Bui on mando, and Chris Sartori on bass), but some new songs.  I liked their old lineup and the traditional songs they used to play, but I have to admit that this was fantastic stuff, perhaps the most impressive set I’ve seen from them.  Bui was flawless as ever, Parks was excellent on fiddle, Sumner rocked my head on guitar and smooth as silk woman bluegrass vocals as she always does, and their arrangements are great.

AND ... they were well into their set and then they took a breath, and then sang Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds.  This caught me totally unawares, I didn't know they covered this.  "Lucy" means a lot to me: Sergeant Pepper's was the first album I bought, and there have been several situations in my life when I've been watching the plasticine porters and then By Dog there's suddenly somebody there at the turnstile.  'Nuff said.

Their climax was Blondie’s Heart Of Glass, and as weird as this was (no more weird than Emmylou doing a Beatles song in the 70s??), it is an immensely successful earworm and played in my head all night.  But I wish they'd smile a bit more ... maybe it was glare but they all took some serious turns frowning at us all.

Amy Helm – Amy’s changed a bit too over the last few years.  In the past we’ve seen her with musicians who really challenged her and that had a certain tension that we loved.  She’s more in charge of the band now and though these guys may have been able to upstage her themselves (fantastic guitar player, bass player, keyboardist, and drummer), they stayed more in the background and let her vocals shine out.  I think she’s great and was fine with this!  She opened with Didn’t It Rain (we were hoping it wouldn’t and so far so good) and climaxed the set with her new song This Too Shall Light (her second album (with this song) has not yet been released) as the balloons took off in the still-bright evening, and she brought out Allison Russell to help with the encore.

Birds Of Chicago – I missed these guys a couple of years ago at GRF and was kicking myself.  They’ve recently released Love In Wartime and that is an incredible record (though they didn't play my favorite song from it, Roisin Starchild).  So I was psyched and was not at all disappointed by Allison Russell’s crystal-beautiful vocals and JT Nero’s grit.  They were perhaps a little cautious in this Friday-night set, but they let it all hang out the next day.

Before they were done I grabbed some food from La Veracruzana and then ran down to the Latin Stage for…

Orquesta Akokán – Managed to time this perfectly and was front and center on the rail when this huge Cuban band came out.  I was eager to see them but ended up being a bit disappointed.  They played a very formal style and even though there was probably enough talent on the stage to sink a ship, they were content to stay in the background and let the singer/bandleader, Jose Gomez, strut his stuff in his white suit and point to them in turn to take short leads.  As the woman next to me said, “He’s just like a small Ricky Ricardo!”  Anyway, did some dancing and some grooving but soon it was time to leave.

Back at the Main Stage Josh Ritter had started his set but it didn’t hold our attention and we packed up quickly and left, as we had planned to do.  It wasn’t a long drive up to our hotel in Brattleboro but we didn’t want to arrive really late, and our friends were waiting!

We checked in to the Hampton at exit 3, texted with the folks, and then mostly assembled downstairs in the lobby where a girl’s softball team and their parents/hangers-on were already assembled and making more noise than we could.  We tried our best to join in and had a fun time before dragging ourselves away to bed.