A bit more detail for the folks who were not there, from an account I wrote to a friend. (While waiting on the pictures, which are going off s-l-o-w-l-y in the absence of word back from Pene Azul).
The Fest was great fun, as always, and though I am always completely sleep-deprived, it really does recharge my batteries wonderfully. It comprises concert series, reunion, music classes, and party, and many of the folks are regulars, both performers and audience. Fashions there seem to go beyond usual t-shirt and shorts festival wear. Carl wore a utilikilt, khaki with pouches and tool loops, which looked good but was quite practical; Dan wore a sarong and was comfortable and also looked good but lacked pockets; Saturday for no obvious reason a dozen men showed up in sarongs. Music was similarly varied. This year we had back many favorites, including John Roberts, Robbie O'Connell and Mick Moloney, Margaret MacArthur (Vermont ballad singer who did the songwriting workshop with Gordon Bok), Martin (son of Stan) Hugill, David Coffin (of the Revels), Jeff Davis, Jerry Epstein, and a lot known primarily in sea music circles (traditional music, Rick Fielding used to say, is a highly incestuous field). Bob Webb, Jerry Bryant, Don Sineti, Finest Kind (US), Ken Sweeney, Bruce Molsky/Paula Bradley, the whole Mystic shanty crew, and a group of teenagers, the S.S.Shanteens. Quite a few musicians come every year whether they are on the program or not, including the Johnson Girls, Windlasses, NexTradition, Stefan from Liereliet, and of course Jon Campbell who despite what he says is always there and jokes how they can't keep him out, and he did wind up onstage again, singing his new song, his proposal for rejuvenating the defunct whaling industry: Catch and Release. Danny Spooner was back, from Australia; I really enjoyed him greatly at his first US trip in 2003. There was a gentleman from Africa who, with two English speaking scholar/musicians, performed traditional music of the Niger River regions. A French Canadian group included a human free-reed of incredible energy; one did not have to speak French to enjoy them. The symposium (scholarly portion, unique to this Festival) included a presentation on the "oyster wars" of Virginia and an unwittingly but insanely funny account, culminating in a musical farce based on the events; a presentation on the musical traditions of Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island, off the coast of Australia, which interestingly enough have closer ties to the US than to Australia (and a reverence for Jimmy Buffett who has some strong links there; who knew?), and one on the pearl diving trade in Kuwait and Bahrain, a cruelly hard life but one with its own worksong traditions not unlike those of 18th century whaling, and a population in which 20% are professional musicians (which sounds like heaven to me). The workshops were varied as always, and as always too many good things going on. At any given time, there are likely to be (1) a big concert, group or "big name" at the Point, (2) a small intimate solo concert in the Chapel which has very good acoustics and probably seats 40 or so, (3) live sail-handling and similar tasks being performed shipboard, to the music used for such tasks; shanties in their natural habitat, (4) demonstrations of maritime activities such as a dead horse ceremony, a breeches buoy rescue, or a whaleboat launch, (5) a musical event on the roomy and beautiful town green, which might be a workshop or a concert or a fife and drum corps or practically anything, (5) a workshop in song in the church which has magnificent acoustics, and (6) at least one other workshop on the north green, on the river. Plus, of course, the children's stage and random outbreaks of spontaneous music anywhere. MMario is right, they need a cloning workshop. (That is not a typo; that is how he spells it.) The workshops can be on a variety of topics, by song type (ballads, contemporary music), water type (river songs, canal songs), type of use (forebitters vs shanty), composer (Rogers, Tawney), collector (Warner, Doerflinger), musical instrument (bones, squeezebox), or anything else that strikes the fancy of the organizer or participants (Civil War fife tunes; Appalachian ballads with sea themes; cross-dressing songs; seafaring imagery in hymns, Napoleonic war marches, menhaden fishery songs). There is a concert Thursday night, involving several groups or performers doing sets of varying lengths, with a "pub sing" after (big mixer, with pints, with performers, wannabes, fans all together, with one song at a time led by whoever launches a song, until one or so), then a similar concert and sing Friday. Saturday morning is the symposium, then "workshops" all afternoon. What a mundane word for the kaleidoscope of activities! These end about five, and the evening concert starts at seven. Officially everyone leaves. I always skip supper and spend the time roaming the nearly empty grounds in the most beautiful time of the day. Pub sing after Saturday's concert tends to be followed by small individual sessions, totally unofficial, and depending entirely on who one happens to be hanging with. I wound up with two dozen musicians in the historic tavern (long closed but a friend who works there let us in and filled pitchers to boot) where we went from shanties to laments to blues to spirituals, seasoned with hysterical laughter at times as well, a wonderful time; got home about five, getting light and birds singing). A couple of years ago we had clog dancing in the gazebo at three a.m. Sunday things get underway a little later, thank Heaven, with workshops until three then the final concert in which everyone there does one song each. The last few years some folks in New London have had a party after, which has included practically all the musicians plus a few of us really hard-core fans; this year we wound up with three separate sessions going, sea music and blues in the living room, instrumental on the back porch, and a little of everything on the side porch, plus random songs in the kitchen. Monday is the aptly-named Survivor's Night at the Gris (the beloved Griswold Inn of course), where we pack it full for supper, then Cliff sings then cuts his usual gig short and calls up all the musicians there to do a number apiece before he finishes it up. This year as I went out to my car around midnight I found a friend from California was parked nose to nose with me in the now nearly empty lot, and we wound up standing (that's right, never even sat down; he is a highly entertaining conversationalist) talking in the lot, leaning on my car, until four. So, for rest I might as well have been on the redeye, but for sheer joy of living it can hardly be beat.