Green River Festival 2025 - Friday

Friday June 20

The Green River Festival announced another lineup of bands we weren’t that excited about and/or had never heard of for 2025, and a few we might like to see.  But we’ve always had a good time there, so we sighed, booked rooms at the Red Rose with our friends, and headed out there on a beautiful Friday, this year’s Summer Equinox.  A little rain, a lot of wind, and a lot of sun and heat were forecast, what else is new?

Stopped at The People’s Pint in downtown Greenfield for lunch after being detoured through Turner’s Falls when a tree was down on route 2.  Had some fine beers and Dave had the trout salad, which we others wished we’d ordered.

Drove the 20 or so minutes further West and checked in with Aldo at the Rose, we got room 2 this year.  None of the others had showed up by the time we finished unloading, relaxed a bit, and then left for the Franklin County Fairgrounds at a quarter after 2:00 or so.  Got a nice parking spot in the shade near the gate and waited in line with perhaps a hundred other people before they let us in at 3:00.  They’re now marking off an even bigger patch of lawn for standing room; we set up our chairs almost as far forward as possible, but were still a bit behind and to the left of the sound board tent.  This was fine though, and the bigger patch of lawn was needed for the standing-room crowd they got for the headliners.

There were some small changes this year.  They not only searched bags but then wanded you for metal before letting anyone in, fine with me.  They had moved all the craft vendors to assigned stalls in the livestock exhibition buildings, which made them a bit harder to browse but was a great idea that worked out for everyone.  It was just a little cosier and more secure for the customers and the vendors.  They had more of an emergency equipment presence and lined them all up in a fenced off area where the vendors used to be.  Another great move was they shifted the Dean’s Beans stage a bit more away from the Main Stage to take advantage of the natural amphitheater on the slope over that way, and probably to minimize sound leakage.  This made more room for the food vendors too, and tents to eat at.  They also had a much better beer selection this year and more beer tents, though it was all cans rather than draft.

Another change was they went totally with a staggered schedule this year rather than an endlessly overlapping one.  They alternated between having the Main Stage and the Round House stage going, or else having the Dean’s Beans and Back Porch stages going.  This was much better for sound leakage and gave the performers a real chance to do sound checks right before they went on.  This made it a bit harder to dash around and see a little bit of everyone, but that isn’t necessarily a huge loss.

Anyway, I wandered around and checked thing out and ended up right in front of the Dean’s Beans stage for the Gaslight Tinkers at 4:00.  They were a folkie two-some on guitar and fiddle when I saw them several years ago, but now are a full band with a drum set and a bassist that plays all over the musical map and also features a dynamic conga player on vocals.  The conga player did a great hambone that morphed into Cluck Old Hen.  They also did Woody Guthrie’s I Ain’t Got No Home, adding another verse to the great lyrics, this one about the horrible number of people who live in our country but are suddenly finding themselves without a home.

Saw all of their set and then hurried right over to the Main Stage for Torres at 4:40.  They (preferred pronoun) played with an electric bass, keyboard, and drums and succeeded in having a very fleshed out sound for such a small combo.  Torres really self-challenges with some complicated guitar parts and vocal parts, but usually it works great.  Not anything I'd call country (Torres has been dabbling with country sounds in their recent partnership with Julien Baker), but a very fun opening main stage set.  One song I really liked was a long litany of complaints about things her “baby” was doing wrong.  It was like Positively 4th Street, updated for this decade.

But I left their set before the end so I could be sure to get up front for AJ Lee and Blue Summit over at the Back Porch stage at 5:30.  I actually caught the last bit of their sound check, which was a light-hearted romp on I Wonder Where You Are Tonight.  She and her band were very impressive.  I haven't been a huge fan of what I've heard from her, but on seeing her sing live, I really liked her non-aggressive alto.  Her mandolin work is very good, funny that's not featured more.

But the knock-you-over part of the set was the work from her two guitarists, Scott Gates and most of all Sully Tuttle (Molly Tuttle’s brother).  Gates did the neo-traditionalist leads at a twangy setting, but Sully Tuttle did the distinctive ones, playing his guitar so fast and so delicately it sounded like a gut-string or maybe even a sitar.  They feature Jan Purat on fiddle and a bassist (Sean Mueller??), who made some great train sounds at one point by rubbing his bow downwards on the bass strings.  They then lit into the big song of the set, a great mashup of the New Riders of the Purple Sage's Glendale Train, into and out of Orange Blossom Special, and back to the last verse of Glendale Train.  They also did a cover of Neil Diamond's I'm a Believer (The Monkees hit) as a country ballad.

Took a short break to quiet down out at the car in the shade after that.  The Back Porch stage had been as jammed as I’ve ever seen it by the end of AJ Lee’s set (she got a very good crowd reaction, especially to Tuttle’s breaks, which were just awesome).  I then grabbed some food from La Veracruzana and took it back to our seats at the Main Stage, where I caught the second part of the set from Mo Lowda & the Humble.

They’re another interesting indie rock band with a small but full guitar/guitar/bass/drums lineup.  Lowda played a telecaster but managed to create a great atmospheric sound with it, and the other guitarist doubled on keys.  Mo switched to bass for the song Beachtown, which was very good.  Wish I’d seen more of their set!

Next up were two bands I wasn’t that interested in seeing, but this was a great time of the evening to get another beer, check out the vendors, and wander around some more.  Saw a couple of songs from Ocie Elliott on the Back Porch stage, and concluded they’re as not-to-my-taste as I thought they’d be (friends who’d seen them were in accord).  I also saw a short bit of textbook reggae band Kabaka Pyramid on the Dean’s Beans stage, who don’t have much going besides a punishing bass sound.

Ok, back to our seats with a chicken burrito to enjoy the evening’s headliner, Mt. Joy.  They’re a suddenly very popular indie rock band from LA with a seemingly devoted following (by the number of people jamming the lawn and screaming in unison), and gave us a really enjoyable set.  The small band is fronted by Matt Quinn on lead vocals and acoustic guitar, and includes Sam Cooper on lead guitar, Sotiris Eliopoulos on drums, and Micheal Burns on bass (he seemed to have a different electric bass for every song).  But the part of their sound I really liked was Jackie Miclau on piano and organ.  She had a wonderful-sounding Yamaha upright piano, which she played very well.

We were getting pretty tired and wanted to avoid the probable traffic jam after their set, so left a few songs before it was over.  Fine drive back to the Red Rose, but the party/cookout area they have was taken by another group!  Dave and I wandered over there as they were dispersing however, and they were a nice bunch of touring bikers from Rochester.

Then our group started showing up and we had a fine turnout this year.  Don’t know how late everyone partied, I had to bag eventually and was in bed by 11:30 or so after another fine GRF Friday.