14 comments !?!
Wow.
Yeah, well, they’re almost entirely friends browbeating me about the delay in my second post…
So:
I’d meant to post something about the Philly Folk Fest, since that was what I did the weekend following the Six Flags Great Adventure trip. Thing is, I started loading in this season’s first show at work (www.peopleslight.org) the day after the Fest. We have our final dress rehearsal tomorrow night, and this is basically the first time I’ve had cogent free time in about two weeks.
So the Fest isn’t as fresh in my mind as it was when I’d just unpacked and still had sunblock SPF 30 clogging my pores even after a good shower.
Yeah, the Night of the Togas remains pretty vivid. That needs to become a Fest tradition. Wandering the campground in the middle of the night in a toga was so comfortable, I was almost inspired to buy a kilt the next day. Of course, a kilt all but demands going commando as a moral imperative. Probably not the best idea for the togas, at least not unless there’s some R&D devoted to the design of next Fest’s models.
Overall, this was an admirably lazy Fest. Perhaps it was the programme of performers this year, or maybe it was just that we’re becoming old hands at Festing, but there seemed to be little of the “who do we see now?” pressure there’d been at previous Fests. Speaking for myself, at least, I was a lot more content to just mix and match and randomly discover performers than I’ve been in the past. I suppose it was in part owed to the fact that there were fewer people of whom I had advance knowledge than in years past. There was also the persistent consideration of physical comfort: i.e.—performers’ virtues were weighed against the intensity of the sun I’d have to sit in the see them. At least one choice was based largely on the opportunity to hide from Our Enemy The Sun.
Mention of Old Sol reminds me of the fact that this was largely a mud-free Fest. Nothing like the arid drought Fest from a few years back, of course. That was the year of water trucks, the year the Powers That Be at the Fest cited the dry conditions and ended the open campfires I’d loved. This year things were just free of mud. (The rains held off all through the weekend, despite the oppressive humidity; it waited to rain on me on my way home.)
Musically, the discovery of this Fest for me was the Baltimore-based trio We’re About 9. Pre-mid-life suburban ennui, great three-part harmonies. Notable also was the farewell performance of DaVinci’s Notebook. << sigh… >> The downside surprise was the ho-hum performance from Kris Kristofferson closing Saturday night’s concert. At least we had nothing to fear from vampires…
