The crowds were large an estimated 750,000 – more than Coachella, Lollapalooza and All Points West combined – urbane, hippies, street buskers and hipsters all in Golden Gate Park and under mostly warm Indian Summer skies. The bill on all 6 stages (one more added this year) were all impressive and walking from stage to stage through the huge crowd to stave off any regrets of missing something can wear you out.
On top of the advertised bill there were some cool surprises – Robert Plant and Emmylou Harris made an appearance with Buddy Miller on Saturday morning. Steve Earle and Allison Moore joined Tom Morello (in his acoustic Nightwatchman persona) for a rousing version of Woody Guthrie’s This Land is your Land. John Prine joining Lyle Lovett onsatge for a cover of Townes Van Zandt’s Loretta. Emmylou Harris joined Gillian Welch and David Rawlings for a rendition of Didn’t Leave Nobody But The Baby from the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack and then they were joined by Old Crow Medicine Show for a rousing cover of The Band’s The Weight. Emmylou Harris also received an honorary doctorate of music from the Berklee College of Music at her close out the festival on Sunday night. Dr Harris performed at the very first HSB headliner back in 2001.
Highlights for me – Lyle Lovett, Hayes Carll, The Flatlanders, Rosie Flores, Guy Clark, Robert Earl Kee, Todd Snider, Rodney Crowell keeping Texas proud. Seeing Booker T with the mighty Drive By Truckers. Neko Case, Gillian Welch, Elizabeth Cook and Aimee Mann – four of my favorite female singers. A chilly day, chili and corn bread lunch serenaded by Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs on the Banjo Stage. Dave Alvin dedicating a song to his recently deceased band mate Amy Ferris. The big one for me was meeting my hero Texas legend Billy Joe Shaver.
Disapointments – Turing around at the Elizabeth Cook Porch Stage performance and finding Steve Earle standing right behind me with a YANKEES CAP! C’mon dude, you’re killing me!
A tip of the Ranch Twang hat to banjo player, creator and benefactor of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Warren Hellman for picking up the tab for this extraordinary free event!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSftjNhWmhw[/youtube]
With their big label debut the Avett Brothers – Seth Avett and Scott Avett, who share vocals and play the guitar and banjo respectively, and Bob Crawford on stand-up bass – don’t take any extreme steps toward commercial success, quite the contrary given their situation. The band brings their sound and earnest, reflective and playful lyrics are taken to a more mature state and producer and label owner Rick Rubin does what he does best, focusing on subtleties and strengths. Piano and stings give even the nuanced piece an epic feel -The title cut, Head Full of Doubt, Road Full of Promise, and a slices of giddy pop – Kick Drum Heart, Tin Man, Slight Figure of Speech, It Goes On and On – not frothy pop but the layered buoyancy of early Beatles, Kinks and Beach Boys. With others before them – Waco, Neko Case – the move from the rustic territories to town comes with a price, and the price in this case is facial hair. That’s the surprising thing about I and Love and You. It’s not the seismic shift of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or Case’s Middle Cyclone or more representative of indie to big label REM’s Green. The songs are sharper, production crisper but if you loved the Avetts Autumnal odes before, you’ll love this album.
The Felice Brother’s newest release, Yonder Is The Clock , came out in April of this year and it also hold no surprises for long time fans. Released on indie label Team Love The Felice’s -Ian Felice guitar/vocal , James Felice – accordion, Simone Felice on drums, Christmas Clapton on bass, Greg Farley – fiddle and washboard – again channel the rollicking Big Pink-style Dylan/The Band front-porch jam with a dash of Tom Waits junkyard orchestra thrown in for good measure. Where the Avetts are dewy with wonder and innocence the Felice’s have an urbane, rough edge to their Catskill Mountain rearing (probably cultivated from busking in the streets of New York City.) Darkness abounds – There is nautical peril (the subtle album opener The Big Surprise and Waits-like ballad Sailor Song, dying homeless (in the rollicking stomp of Penn Station), reanimation from a frozen cocoon (the woozy waltz of Buried in Ice), Innocence lost – the deliriously beautiful All When We Were Young (sung with quivering elegance by drummer Simone Felice who recently left the band to start The Duke and The King with Robert “Chicken†Burke) and chickens (!) with the barn-burning bluesy bombast of Chicken Wire and the zydeco spiked Run Chicken Run.
