I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: July 27 & 28, 2019] Newport Folk Festival

Back in 1998, I won a radio contest (not through luck, I knew the name of a song and couldn’t believe no one else did!) and scored a ticket to the Newport Folk Festival.  It was in a lull back then and also, I believe there was only one stage (it’s hard to remember).  Now it is at full power, selling out before artists are even announced.

S. and I have talked about going and finally this year I saw when tickets were announced and I bought 4 tickets for us.  I knew that our son wouldn’t want to go, but I decided to make a long vacation out of it–a couple days in Rhode Island and then about a week in Maine.  He couldn’t say no to going to that.

I didn’t get Friday tickets because three days seemed excessive.  Plus, you never know who is going to appear until long after you buy the tickets. and that actually worked out pretty well.   Turned out, there wasn’t anyone I really wanted to see.

So we rolled in for Saturday.  I was told that if you wanted to get the poster you had to get their very early.  We arrived at 12:30 and they were long sold out.  Oh well.

The schedule for Saturday was

Fort Stage [Big stage]	Quad Stage [Middle Stage]	Harbor Stage [Tiny Stage]
Devon Gilfillian	Illiterate Light	Haley Heynderickx
Jade Bird	The Nude Party	“Songs for Beginners”
Gregory Alan Isakov	Jupiter & Okwess	Susto
Maggie Rogers	Rayland Baxter	Ruston Kelly
Jeff Tweedy	Lucy Dacus	Kevin Morby
♀♀♀♀: THE COLLABORATION	North Hills: Dawes & Friends	Mountain Man

I had interest in the bolded artists.  The problem with Newport Folk Festival (or the good thing if that’s your thing) is that the artists’ performances overlap.  They are not starting at the same time but for instance Lucy Dacus went on from 4:05 – 5:00 and Jeff Tweedy went on from 4:40 – 5:45.  So you have to pick and choose and plan accordingly.

Sadly for me, my kids don’t enjoy this kind of thing as much as I do.  So my plans–see this band, then run over and see this one for 20 minutes and then… –didn’t jibe with their needs.

Plus, from the Fort Stage to the Quad Stage is probably a five minute walk.  You pass the Harbor Stage on your way.  So you easily lose a few minutes crossing around, and if you want to get up close to the stage, forget it.

So we arrived during Jade Bird.  My daughter wanted to look at all the booths.  I had penciled in plenty of booth time later, but I’m not a pre-teen, so we looked at booths and food all while Jade Bird played.  I really didn’t get to appreciate her, but she sounded good and I heard the songs that I knew.  When I saw pictures later I realized I had missed a good performance.

I think we heard:

1. Lottery
2. Walk Like an Egyptian
3. My Motto
4. Something American
5. I Get No Joy

It was now lunch time, so we all went over by the Harbor Stage and while the kids got food we heard Susto.  S. was apparently up close and was able to watch and enjoy him.  I was hanging back waiting for the kids to get heir food so I got to experience him sort of.  I enjoyed what I heard and he sounded really good live.  S. agreed.

SETLIST

1. Homeboy
2. Jah Werx
3. Hard Drugs
4. If I Was
5. Friends, Lovers, Ex-Lovers: Whatever
6. Weather Balloons
7. Dream Girl

My kids were tired and hot and we hadn’t been in the Quad area yet, so we walked there and discovered that they had a large, empty shade tent available.  So we wound up getting food and hanging around during the Jupiter & Okwess performance.  I had heard of them from a Tiny Desk Concert, but I had forgotten that their draw was their performance.  The music was fun–dancey and wonderfully multicultural–but I had forgetten the fun visuals they employed (like that the drummer wears a lucha libre mask).

Then we found out that Colin Meloy would be reading from his book in the kids tent!  This was more or less unannounced ahead of the show (Colin let us know on Instagram).  So we hung around in the kids tent area.  Colin gets his own post.

Maggie Rogers came on but we were off buying merch.  She also sounded great and apparently put on a hell of a show, but I only heard a couple of songs.  It’s actually quite impressive how the sound does not carry from one area to another.

SETLIST

1. Past Life
2. Back in My Body
3. The Knife
4. Light On
5. Fallingwater

We were then heading over to the Quad Stage to watch Lucy Dacus.  Lucy will get her own post.  But it was a very tough decision on who to miss–part of Lucy or part of Jeff Tweedy.

I had recently seen both of them live, but I had seen Lucy more recently (and I’d seen her twice), so I left after a few songs.  S. and the kids stayed in the shaded area (it’s nice that the quad and harbor stages have seats under giant tents–although it does make it hard to get close if you’re late).

In another moment that was really bizarre, the photographers were allowed to stay for a song or two up in the front.  As I saw the press leaving I noticed that Bob Boilen from NPR’s All Songs Considered was up there.  After years of having him tell me about concerts I should go to, we were finally at the same one.  I also saw him at Jeff Tweedy,  I kind of wanted to say hi and thank him for the years of great music recommendations, but that seemed like a weird thing to do.  But if he ever reads this, thank you Bob!

I headed over for Jeff Tweedy and managed to get there just before he went on.  I was able to hear his whole performance.  He gets his own post.

Sarah and I have wanted to see Dawes for a little while.  We don’t love them but we like them enough and think it would be fun to check them out live.  This North Hills: Dawes & Friends show sounded like a lot of fun.  However, by the time Jeff Tweedy ended, I met up with S. who told me the kids stayed in the shaded tent.  So we went to the quad stage to get them.  Dawes had started.  But I needed to use the restroom and by the time the line ended it was time to head back over to the main stage for ♀♀♀♀: THE COLLABORATION.

None of us knew what ♀♀♀♀: THE COLLABORATION would be exactly.  I suppose if we were more familiar with the Festival we would have stayed.  The main organizer for this collaboration appeared to be Brandi Carlisle.  I think Brandi is really good but I also got really sick of her on the radio at home.  I didn’t especially want to hear her.  Her new collaboration The Highwomen is just way too country for me.  As I was walking around the stadium, they announced her name and I heard someone mutter Fuckin’ Brandi Carlisle.  I didn’t feel that negatively about her but I wasn’t that excited that the collaboration was hers.

When ♀♀♀♀: The Collaboration started, out came Brandi and her Highwomen (Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris, Amanda Shires, and Natalie Hemby) and a few other women who had played that day.

We had a choice: beat the traffic and leave now or stay and see who else she brought out.  Well, we assumed it would be Newport performers so we decided it would be fine to leave.

Rolling Stone describes her set as “the Brandi Carlile Variety Show — or a one-hour, female-centric set specially curated by the Highwoman herself.”

We stayed for Courtney Marie Andrews, Lake Street Dive, Candy Carpenter and Molly Tuttle playing “Big Yellow Taxi.” Then with the First Ladies of Bluegrass, Yola followed with a fierce rendition of “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves.”  It sounded great, but we decided it was more sensible to get back to the hotel.  And it was good that we did because the next night it took an hour to leave. So we made it out easily and quickly and had a nice dinner at Bertucci’s.  Only to find out that this incredible performance had happened a bridge away.

• Courtney Marie Andrews, Lake Street Dive, Candy Carpenter and Molly Tuttle, “Big Yellow Taxi” (Joni Mitchell cover)
• Yola and the First Ladies of Bluegrass, “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves” (Aretha Franklin and The Eurythmics cover)
• Amy Ray and Lucy Dacus, “Go” (Indigo Girls song)
• Sheryl Crow and Maren Morris, “If It Makes You Happy”
• Sheryl Crow, Yola and Maggie Rogers, “Strong Enough”
• Linda Perry, Jade Bird and Highwomen, “What’s Up?” [that sounds irritating frankly.  We probably would have left during this song.]
• Judy Collins and Brandi Carlile, “Both Sides Now” [S. was very upset to have missed Judy]
• The Highwomen, Sheryl Crow and Yola, “Highwomen”
• Dolly Parton and The Highwomen, “Eagle When She Flies” [S. broke into tears when she found out hat she missed Dolly]
• Dolly Parton and The Highwomen, “Just Because I’m a Woman”
• Dolly Parton and Brandi Carlile, “I Will Always Love You”
• Dolly Parton and The Highwomen, “Jolene”
• The Collaboration, “9 to 5”

The next night we talked to a woman who was waiting with us for the bus.  Her daughter was one of the producers of the show and she told us that her daughter DID NOT TELL HER that Dolly Parton was coming.  It was a huge secret.  So her mom, like us, left early.  While she was heading home, her daughter texted her “don’t leave, something special is going to happen.”  So, if the producer’s daughter missed it, I guess we can’t feel that bad.

Then came Sunday.

Our son didn’t like Day one and decided he’d rather stay in the hotel than go the second day, so that was fine.  It’s better to have him stay back than for him to be miserable the whole day.  And in fact he was a pretty good trooper on day one.  Our daughter wanted to come on Sunday and although she gets overheated easily she was also a trooper both days.

But so we weren’t ignoring him for the whole day, we decided to go to the festival later on Sunday.  We spent the morning at a lovely little beach near where we were staying and had a ton of fun in water that came up to our waist even as we walked out 300 yards.  That was really fun.  It was worth sacrificing the artists I wanted to see to have this time with the family.

Fort Stage	Quad Stage	Harbor Stage
Preservation Hall Jazz Band	The O’My’s	E.B. The Younger
Stephen Marley	Bonny Light Horseman	Nilüfer Yanya
Lake Street Dive	The Infamous Stringdusters	J.S. Ondara
Trey Anastasio	Our Native Daughters	Courtney Marie Andrews
Hozier	Phosphorescent	Billy Strings & Molly Tuttle
If I Had a Song	Portugal. The Man	The Milk Carton Kids

I had planned on seeing Nilüfer Yanya (who I had seen fairly recently and wanted to see again), and J.S. Ondara who I’m quite intrigued by.   But since we were hanging around, I said the first act I really wanted to see was Trey Anastasio.  We got there in plenty of time to watch his whole performance.  Trey gets his own post.

But then came the rub

Trey Anastasio 3:15-4:15
Billy Strings & Molly Tuttle 3:40-4:35
Phosphorescent 4:10-5:05
Hozier 4:45-5:45
The Milk Carton Kids 5:05-6:05
Portugal. The Man 5:35-6:35
If I Had a Song 6:10-7:30

It was impossible to see everyone I wanted to see, so I had to prioritize.

I saw one song of Billy Strings & Molly Tuttle.  I had seen Billy before and he was amazing.  The rousing instrumental jam that I got to witness was definitely fun, but I didn’t get to see him do anything fancy.  Rats.

Skipped Phosphorescent entirely to make sure I got back in time for Hozier. Hozier was great and I was able to get some great pictures–he gets his own post.  And yes I got to see Mavis Staples sing with him, which was awesome.

But Portugal. The Man is a band I have wanted to see for a couple of years–ever since I chose not to go to their show that I had a ticket for.  So I skipped the end of Hozier and went to the other tent for Portugal.

The Milk Carton Kids are also a band I’ve wanted to see live because their live show sounded so much fun.  They are currently touring a shows called “A Night with The Milk Carton Kids in Very Small Venues for Very Low Ticket Prices.”  Sadly its already sold out at Boot & Saddle.  I only got to hear a minute of them as I walked past (and took a picture).  All I heard was one of the Kids telling how the other Kid had had a whole lot of personal problems recently and that he would be more than happy to tell us all about.  It made me laugh and wish I could have stayed but I was caught in the flow and was not allowed to stand in the path and watch them even for a minute.

Then I got to the Quad Stage and it was full.  But I found a standing spot in the shade.

For the first time all weekend, there was a pretty lengthy delay.  Portugal started about ten minutes late.  And then, in a move that was very cool, but also time-consuming, they brought out a guest speaker.  Their speaker was a Native woman from the tribe that lives in the region, the Narragansett.   Portugal works with Native Americans in Alaska and so they wanted to have a Native speaker for this show. Which is pretty amazing.  She spoke to us for a bit and welcomed us to their land.  Which was surprisingly moving.  It turns out that this is a tradition every night on tour.

By the time Portugal actually started, though, we had time for one song and then we headed back to the Main Stage to make sure we saw this night’s collaboration.

The song we saw was “Purple Yellow Red and Blue.”

We were sitting pretty far back for the If I Had a Song Collaboration.  I would have loved to get up close again, but my daughter was pretty worn out after two days of Festival.  However, apparently, if we had gotten closer, Official songbooks were given out.

It was hard to see who was up there, but we were always told who was playing.  The core band was guitarist Chris Funk of The Decemberists, keyboardist Benmont Tench, who played with Tom Petty &The Heartbreakers, bassist John Stirratt of Wilco, guitarist Taylor Goldsmith from Dawes and “drummer for hire” Janet Weiss (who had announced she was leaving Sleater-Kinney just a few days earlier).

It was hard to tell what was happening as the collaboration started.  I couldn’t see anything and I couldn’t quite hear what the announcer said.  But then came the unmistakable voice of Kermit The Frog singing “The Rainbow Connection.”  It was utterly surreal and there are far better pictures online than anything I could get.

Then came the first surprise as Jim James from My Morning Jacket was called up to sing with him.  This was very exciting as I’m a huge fan of Jim James and he is a huge fan of Newport–in the past he has sung with 7 artists in a weekend.  It was great that he was there, if only for a few minutes.

After the surprise of Dolly Parton the previous night, I really had no idea what to expect for the rest of the night, so I was a little disappointed that the next performance was Benmont Tench and Taylor Goldsmith singing Bob Dylan’s “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.”  It was good, but disappointing only because hey, that was the band who was up there anyway.  Their version was also quite unusual.

But more surprises were to come as a string section of students from the Berklee School Of Music and members of Preservation Hall Jazz Band assisted Trey Anastasio and Rachel Price from Lake Street Dive singing The Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.”  I have to admit that Trey may not have been the best singer for this song as it was a bit of his range, although Price’s vocals were gorgeous for it.  Actually, after listening to a recording of the show, it sounds like Trey did a much better job than we realized–perhaps standing so far back, his gentle singing didn’t sound as good as it did up close.

Then it was time to celebrate Pete Seeger who would have been 100 year old.

Rachel Price and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band sang “We Shall Overcome.”  Then Brandi Carlile and Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff sang “If I Had A Hammer.”  I think Segarra is amazing and I thought she would do some interesting things with this song, but she made it a sing along and then…sang it differently from the conventional way of singing it.  That was a bit clunky.

Then came Our Native Daughters who performed a striking rendition of “If You Miss Me At The Back Of The Bus,” a song I didn’t know.

This was a sobering moment, but the fun was brought back when Lake Street Dive and Hozier sang a fantastic version of Sly & The Family Stone’s “Everyday People.”

Then Portugal. The Man (whose set we could hear a bit of over the walls during the early quieter moments of this collaboration) came out and played The Kinks’ “Strangers.”

Mavis Staples and Hozier came back out with Jason Isbell (it was hard to hear any of them indidvuidually) and Our Native Daughters for Pete Seeger’s “Keep Your Eyes On The Prize.”

Then a delightful surprise was when Robin Pecknold from Fleet Foxes (one of our favorites) came out and did a really rocking and raw version of John Lennon’s “Instant Karma!”

Then started the real highlights of the night for us.

Pecknold was joined by Eric D. Johnson of Fruit Bats and James Mercer of The Shins and they sang a stunningly gorgeous version of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.”  Their harmonies were outstanding and to hear it in the same place that it was performed so many years ago gave me chills.  I also loved that they didn’t play no stinking radio edit version–they did the whole thing.

And what made it even more special was when Judy Collins emerged to sing it with them.  S. was so thrilled that Judy came back since we’d missed her the night before.  She then told a story that Graham Nash had written Suite Judy Blue Eye about her.  I guess this is common knowledge but i had no idea.  She told us when she first heard it she said, “it is a lovely song, but it’s not going to get me back.”

Then we had the most gorgeous moment of the night as Judy Collins sang with Robin Pecknold on guitar.  The audience was utterly rapt as she sang a stirring version of “Turn! Turn! Turn!”  Hearing her voice on the shores of Newport as it rang out so clearly and beautifully was a truly unforgettable moment.

We had one more surprise when Colin Meloy came back out.  We had seen him up close for his little session, but it was wonderful to hear him again.  He was joined by The Milk Carton Kids so I did get to hear them after all as they sang all the verses of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.”  And everyone sang along.

That seemed like it would be the end but they had one more song.  Ramblin’ Jack Elliott came out to lead a version of “Goodnight Irene.”  Every other person who was hanging around clambored on stage to sing along with him.

This was not a massively important ending for us, so we started to head to the buses while this was going on.  We actually made it back to the buses fairly quickly and beat most of the lines.  (That’s where we met the producer’s mother).  But not matter how quickly the bus got us back to our car, we still sat in traffic for an endlessly long time.

This wouldn’t have been so bad except that our poor son was waiting for us at the hotel.  Apparently he had a fine time doing whatever he does.

It was a great Festival and I ‘m glad we did it.

Now we’re trying to decide if we’ll do it again next year (without the kids).