Back in Buffalo. Still in awe of the weekend performances. I haven't made it to a festival since the inaugural Peach, and this was well worth the $ and effort. I won't go into a self indulgent review here bc I have lots to catch up on, but a few key notes to share:
1) The hosting farm and festival set-up, including the side by side main stages is top notch. What a great space and way to put on shows; no wait time between sets, opportunity for great transitions, and no unfortunate trade-offs to walk to other stages while missing shows. And even with all of the unfortunate weather at the front end delaying entry, the organizers did a great job of keeping order and keeping us abreast of developments. Kudos!
2) Just a few moments of applause for John Popper's national anthem kick-off to the music on Friday afternoon gave way to the a smokin' set from the Doobie Collaboration. I've never seen the Doobies live, but this show was tight and full of great moments...the String Cheese Incident really added something to the energy...and an awesome Long Train Runnin' sandwich of a catch SCI tune was a highlight for me. Awesome way to kick things off!
3) Speaking of the String Cheese Incident, they an WSP blew me away. What wonderful live bands that can seriously jam with great energy. Just amazing. First time for me on both, but I'd certainly go back for more. And Jimmy Cliff can still sing too!! Nice finish with him and Chuck on the WSP set.
4) Robert Plant was fun! And the energy and chemistry he has with is band is fun to watch. A nice new agey world music spin on some old Zep tunes, while giving the crowd a taste of the old riffs too. Fun show!
5) Phil and Friends with Haynes and Santana was beautiful. These guys gave Dead and Jam fans everything you'd want. I had moved toward the back at that point in the night so was dependent upon the screens to see the action. Too much time on Phil on base, and not enough screen time on Carlos for my taste, and really none at all on Barraco, but the sound was amazing. And Watchtower was awesome.
6) Due to the above set, Mule didn't come on to the alternate stage until 2am! So the music didn't stop until 4am:) and Mule closed with the "When the Music's Over" as part of a two song Doors encore. Just perfect. Warren was having a ball...closed the regular set with Mule, loaded with all kinds of medley. He was also having fun with the bull horn. All in the early morning drizzle. Just great end to another awesome day of music.
7) And I could go on forever about how good TTB is. About how epic the Mad Dogs and Englishman show was. I'll just say that it was beautiful, rockin', infectious, deferential, celebratory, and riveting from start to finish. It brought me to tears. Just wow. And Susan continues to up her game on th eguitar. And her vocals, especially the energy with C. Robinson to close the tribute left me speechless. And their set the next day was awesome too....and cool of Derek to close with about 15 minutes of a hard charging rock jam with only Kofi and the drummers to transition everyone to Robert Plant.
8) Finally, my head is just spinning with electric guitar prowess. It is almost indescribable how amazing Derek Trucks, Jimmy Herring, Warren Haynes, Carlos Santana, the guy from String Cheese, and Eric Krasno are on their instruments. It was an embarrassment of riches. I feel so fortunate to have attended this festival.
I hope some of you were able to stream it, and I hope you all appreciate the musical mastery we still have the opportunity to see out there. Happy Monday!!
How was organization of the festival this year? How long did it take to get it... and did they actually give you the space they said they would for camping?
I don't know how it's been in the past, but I was generally impressed. We were in car camping, and they had that pretty well organized so that we could set up right next to the vehicle...not a ton of space as it was a tent city situation, but no worse than other festivals I've attended, and with the well defined lanes, etc., it kept things easy to find and get around. Plenty of folks set up the party tent situation without any problem.
It took along time to get in, but the staggered arrival was spoiled by the storms the night before, so everyone was prepared to come in together at dawn on Friday. They let us in around 4:30am to line-up. They seemed to start allowing cars through around 6:30-7am. We didn't get to out tent site until almost 10am. So that was slow, but they did a good job trying to be fair about moving rows ten a t a time and getting the cars off the highway into the holding fields. We'd like to have gotten in sooner but it worked out pretty well all things considered. We spent the night before squatting in a grocery store parking lot with other festival goers about three miles away.
Van,
I was in that parking lot with you....for a while. We drove over to James River St. Park on Thursday, instead, and had a fantastic day in the park and on the river. So glad I didn't park my rig in a Middle School parking lot all day. I'm 60...I have limitations.
The festival is very well run. The organization is a on top of things, as much as you can be with mostly volunteers. Your review was excellent.
A band you did not mention was the Jayhawks. Who, IMO, were the dark horse of the festival. They were fantastic. Most people had no idea who they were. Others have been waiting for years to see the band, I'm in this camp. They did not disappoint.
I hate to say this, but I know many on the site share some of my .... short attention with more Dead cover bands.. I love Phil and he does the best of all of them with playing the catalog, finding new members for his band, etc... Then you had Bob... and Billy .... and Mickey's bands, too much of basically the same thing. I will say, Kudos to Keller Williams who performed a lot of Dead material in an entirely new fashion, along with some gospel tunes, on Sunday morning. It did not sound the same as the other Dead members. It was fresh, upbeat and entirely different. Loved him and his band.
Second favorite band, as per tshirt sightings at Lockn, now this is unofficial, The Alllman Bros Band!
Saw many, many Brothers fans there.
Jealous, jealous, jealous here. I saw the lineup early in the summertime and thought it was probably the best Festival lineup I've ever heard of. I actually mentally toyed with the idea of going......but from California.............somewhat ridiculous $$$ and effort involved.
Listened to much of Rob's stream on Friday, and just finishing up on Lesh with Santana, Haynes, Sless, Molo, and Barracco.
Mucho good tunage.
[Edited on 9/15/2015 by aiq]
Van,
I was in that parking lot with you....for a while. We drove over to James River St. Park on Thursday, instead, and had a fantastic day in the park and on the river. So glad I didn't park my rig in a Middle School parking lot all day. I'm 60...I have limitations.The festival is very well run. The organization is a on top of things, as much as you can be with mostly volunteers. Your review was excellent.
A band you did not mention was the Jayhawks. Who, IMO, were the dark horse of the festival. They were fantastic. Most people had no idea who they were. Others have been waiting for years to see the band, I'm in this camp. They did not disappoint.
I hate to say this, but I know many on the site share some of my .... short attention with more Dead cover bands.. I love Phil and he does the best of all of them with playing the catalog, finding new members for his band, etc... Then you had Bob... and Billy .... and Mickey's bands, too much of basically the same thing. I will say, Kudos to Keller Williams who performed a lot of Dead material in an entirely new fashion, along with some gospel tunes, on Sunday morning. It did not sound the same as the other Dead members. It was fresh, upbeat and entirely different. Loved him and his band.
Second favorite band, as per tshirt sightings at Lockn, now this is unofficial, The Alllman Bros Band!
Saw many, many Brothers fans there.
I may have been one of those ABB shirts you saw! I hear you on the Dead spin-off bands, but seeing carlos and Warren together with Phil's band was a treat. And Billy and Bob's set sounded pretty crisp and true to the Dead...I was returning to camp for a bit during that one, but could hear it pretty well.
[Edited on 9/17/2015 by Vanistheman]
Thanks for sharing your festival memories. I'd give anything to see TTB's Mad Dogs show with Leon Russell, etc.
Here is a video I took of the Mad Dogs & Englishman's "With a Little Help From My Friends"
Thanks for sharing your festival memories. I'd give anything to see TTB's Mad Dogs show with Leon Russell, etc.
Thanks to DerekFromCincinnati for posting it. 
7) And I could go on forever about how good TTB is. About how epic the Mad Dogs and Englishman show was. I'll just say that it was beautiful, rockin', infectious, deferential, celebratory, and riveting from start to finish. It brought me to tears. Just wow. And Susan continues to up her game on th eguitar. And her vocals, especially the energy with C. Robinson to close the tribute left me speechless. And their set the next day was awesome too....and cool of Derek to close with about 15 minutes of a hard charging rock jam with only Kofi and the drummers to transition everyone to Robert Plant.
This band continues to blow me away more every time. Didn't make the fest, but have heard both sets. They continue to alter the arrangements and change things to keep it fresh. The Storm has gone through numerous changes since I saw them last December - this last version was outrageous.
and, if anyone wonders where the intro jam came from, check this out
https://archive.org/details/ttb2015-09-12
[Edited on 9/17/2015 by stormyrider]
7) And I could go on forever about how good TTB is. About how epic the Mad Dogs and Englishman show was. I'll just say that it was beautiful, rockin', infectious, deferential, celebratory, and riveting from start to finish. It brought me to tears. Just wow. And Susan continues to up her game on th eguitar. And her vocals, especially the energy with C. Robinson to close the tribute left me speechless. And their set the next day was awesome too....and cool of Derek to close with about 15 minutes of a hard charging rock jam with only Kofi and the drummers to transition everyone to Robert Plant.
This band continues to blow me away more every time. Didn't make the fest, but have heard both sets. They continue to alter the arrangements and change things to keep it fresh. The Storm has gone through numerous changes since I saw them last December - this last version was outrageous.
and, if anyone wonders where the intro jam came from, check this out
https://archive.org/details/ttb2015-09-12
[Edited on 9/17/2015 by stormyrider]
Thanks for posting this link!
