We missed the Green River Festival last year (DeadCo claimed priority), and so were psyched to make up for it on the weekend of June 21-23 in 2024. As referenced in previous posts, the Festival has gotten more and more popular, out-grown the site we loved at the Greenfield CC, dropped its charming hot-air balloon feature, and was ultimately sold from Signature Sounds to a Western MA concert production firm.
After all these changes, we hoped for a better-organized Festival and a great lineup. But the lineup they announced was packed with acts I'd never heard of, and sadly featured a couple of tired veteran bands (Cake and Fleet Foxes) and a journeyman folk singer (Gregory Alan Isakov) as headliners. Not a good lineup, but I determined to make the best of it, did some research, wrote down notes and grades in a spreadsheet and sent it to our friends for their edification, and felt I was pretty prepared.
Dave had to skip this year (he sat with the cats instead and we gave his ticket to Aldo), but Sarah and I prepared the usual stuff and then hit the road for Greenfield, on a beautiful late morning on the first full day of Summer, that had some dire rain/thunderstorm forecasts for the afternoon. Most of the nation had been suffering through a heat wave, and the forecast was also dire on that score, predicting humid 90s even out in Greenfield. What else is new for the GRF though?
We stopped at The People's Pint in downtown Greenfield for lunch. I had an excellent plate of blackened shrimp tacos with beans and rice, and a couple of their beers. Then out to Shelburne Falls to check in at the Red Rose. We'd been texting with our friends all along, and they were right behind us, checking in themselves when we left for the 3:00 gates open.
As anticipated, the new owners have made a few changes to the Festival, with mixed outcomes. A problem with the Franklin County Fairgrounds setup the last few years has been sound leakage between the stages. They addressed this by moving the Main Stage a bit left and the second stage (Deans Beans) way farther back. They eliminated the Green House Stage to allow for a more expansive Deans Beans setup, and lined up the food vendors so they'd form a consistent sound block. They also changed the schedule so that big acts at the Main Stage did not step on quieter acts at the other stages. These changes were successful.
One key thing that they did not change was excellent sound engineering. This has always been a strength of the Festival and, though they had greatly shrunk the "low chairs" area that we favored and moved the Main Stage soundboard farther back, the sound at all three stages I was at was as good as ever. I did not hear inadvertent feedback or dropped channels even once all weekend, and you could tell by the artists' reaction during their soundchecks that they were very pleased with the technical crews. The two big stages had large VIP sections (which didn't have good sightlines), but very few VIPs.
They apparently had made things not as great for food and drink vendors, and there was less variety. They had dropped Berkshire Brewing, the excellent beer vendor who served fresh drafts (including iconic Ginger Libation), and replaced them with a couple of not-best and expensive canned beers, as well as many varieties of hard seltzer/fruit drinks. Yuck! There were fewer food vendors, though the best ones were still there.
Also, one of the best things about the old Festival was the program they issued for free, with advertisements from the sponsors and with well-written thumbnails of all the acts. But there was no printed program this year. This was a huge failure, and so my spreadsheet was a remarkable success. Several people printed it out and it was consulted very often. I'd given a short description of every band (examples: "four weird white guys doing simplistic, straight ahead rock," "three loud chicks singing in unison, not bad") and a grade from "yes" to "no" with several gradients in between. I thought people would make fun of me for over-obsessing, but there was remarkable agreement with my reviews, and the guidance was vital.
So anyway, we'd gotten there a bit after 3:00 and set up left of the soundboard at the Main Stage. We admired the "Cake" brought by our neighbors, split up to check out the craft vendors and the stinky drinks selection, and then I ended up at the Back Porch Stage for Fantastic Cat at 4:00. This was the "straight ahead rock" of my spreadsheet, Anthony D'Amato's current band, and they were excellent! They wore cheap suits of different colors and white bucks and were loud and greasy. The Festival was off to a rocking start.
But suddenly it came to a stop. Jim Olsen (Signature Sounds was still very involved with the Festival, hosting the Back Porch Stage) interrupted the band in the middle of their fourth(?) song and told us lightning was on the way, everything was on hold, and the Festival was now under a "shelter" order. I screwed for the car and had a beer there, and soon the lightning came in and the rain poured down. Most of our friends were still back at the hotel and I texted them to stay there.
But then it started clearing and Sarah texted me that Fantastic Cat was still playing! The volunteers (who didn't get good guidance from the management) let me back into the Fairgrounds, and I caught a few great acoustic tunes from Fantastic Cat. They rotated between different places in the crowd and swapped instruments, this must have been planned as a contingency and was really good. They did some great ensemble singing and then closed with a singalong of Ricky Nelson's Garden Party.
They ended and I hurried over to the Main Stage, where Oh He Dead were closing up their abbreviated set. They're a soul band with some nice harmonies, would have liked to see more of them.
But soon it was time to head back to the Back Porch for the latest incarnation of progressive bluegrass band Twisted Pine. The band is still headed by Dan Bui on mandolin and Kathleen Parks on fiddle and vocals, but now has Chris Sartori on bass (and excellent whistle) and the astounding Anh Phung on flute. This was great, eclectic stuff! I've seen them many times before, but had never seen Phung (who was rocking a corset and lots of eye shadow). She was a dynamo on the flute and didn't excel on every song, but was aggressive and mixed perfectly. They had a fantastic setlist too, alternating short, spacy songs and longer, well-arranged ones intertwined with samples, some of them traditional tunes. They opened with Bill Monroe's The One I Love Is Gone and closed with the song of the set, John Hartford's Long Hot Summer Day.
The Festival was back on schedule, and I grabbed some food at La Veracruzana and went back to the Main Stage for Lawrence. I'd followed them early in their career and then lost touch, but they're still out on the road and did a really fun set. They're a large, soul-pop band with two saxes and a trombone, doing songs with good hooks. And they're headed by a brother and sister, who are so comfortable with each other their ease translates to a fun, mellow show.
It was getting late, but I really wanted to see The Nude Party back over at the Back Porch. Most of our group was there too, and we (mostly) all voted them as the band of the day. They're a young rock band wearing embroidered jean jackets with a very good singer up front with an acoustic guitar. They've got a great LA-country feel to their songs, featuring an excellent steel player, a great hollow-bodied Gibson rocking the leads, a mean Telecaster playing rhythm, a drummer, and a percussionist who fills in on keys. At times they almost channeled the Doors, especially when they turned up the reverb on the piano, which would hammer out the lead while the singer frowned at everybody.
OK, now it was really late after a long day. Sarah and I wanted to stay for a few tunes from Cake, but it had suddenly gotten so dark we couldn't find our chairs at the Main Stage! Finally got oriented and found them, but after a few songs we decided it was time to call it a night. Cake was pretty good, as I say, they're veterans who know what they're doing, and they had the crowd dancing and grooving.
Got back to the Red Rose and washed the grime and suntan lotion (that hadn't been needed) off my legs and thankfully changed to shoes and socks. Though we'd been prepared for roasting, the day had been rainy and gloomy and never got very warm. We waited up but no one else was back yet and we were toast, so soon to sleep.
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