Review: hardly strictly bluegrass free festival

Subject: Review: hardly strictly bluegrass free festival
From: open mike
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 10:58 PM

This year marks the 10th anniversary of this wonderful free festival. It is held in golden gate park in san francisco, and I hear nothing but rave reviews about it. Certainly there are some mudcats who have been to this. Please add your observations, comments, recommendations.
www.strictlybluegrass.com/ this event is a gift from billionaire
Philanthropist Warren Hellman who also plays in one of the featured bands: The Wronglers (Warren Hellman, Nate Levine, Bill Martin, Krista Martin, Colleen Browne, and Chris Hellman) Won't someone please tell me how an old timey, bluegrassy musician became a billionaire?

(It seems I heard a joke once....how a folk musician becomes a millionaire--first they start out having 2 million dollars....)

http://www.crawdaddy.com/index.php/2010/09/30/hardly-strictly-just-a-billionaire-warren-hellmans-lavish-free-festival/

If you are there enjoying this right now, hooray!

Subject: RE: Review: hardly strictly bluegrass free festival
From: open mike
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 11:20 PM

at last count this festival is attended by hundreds of thousands of people. also joining the Wronglers is Ron Thomason of Dry Branch Fire Squad http://www.drybranchfiresquad.com/

Subject: RE: Review: hardly strictly bluegrass free festival
From: open mike
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 11:26 PM

whilst surfing for dry branch fire squad i found them doing this Utah Phillips song...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-og-66Bzwzw Orphan Train

Subject: RE: Review: hardly strictly bluegrass free festival
From: maeve
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 01:19 AM

open mike's links:

http://www.crawdaddy.com/index.php/2010/09/30/hardly-strictly-just-a-billionaire-warren-hellmans-lavish-free-festival/

http://www.drybranchfiresquad.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-og-66Bzwzw Orphan Train

Subject: RE: Review: hardly strictly bluegrass free festival
From: open mike
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 02:00 AM

thank you for blickifying my links...
i guess a whole bunch of folks on the right coast
as opposed to the left coast will not see this 'til
they gat home from the getaway....but for those of
us who are not there...or at the "hardly strictly"
here is some consolation entertainment...
dry branch fire squad here
warren hellman joins the band on banjo
this shows how bands are using single mikes these days--Dry Branch "08

Subject: RE: Review: hardly strictly bluegrass free festival
From: michaelr
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 12:57 PM

It's more a case of how did a billionaire come to be a banjo player. See here.

The event is in its 10th year; I've been, I think, three times, and each time it was bigger that before. It takes place on six stages in Golden Gate Park.

Warren Hellman foots the bill for everything, making it probably the largest free music event anywhere. I can think of worse ways for a billionaire to spend his money. Go Warren!

Subject: RE: Review: hardly strictly bluegrass free festival
From: GUEST,mschoenh
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 10:31 PM

Happened to walk by Martin Sexton as he was just finishing up and really enjoyed it. Wish I had seen the whole thing. Anyone know what the last song was? Thanks.

Subject: RE: Review: hardly strictly bluegrass free festival
From: Katran
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 11:09 PM

I went for most of Friday and Saturday and stopped by today (a difficult feat unless you live in the neighborhood) to hear Earl Scruggs pick.

The standout acts for me were the Carolina Chocolate Drops on Saturday--Rhiannon Giddens is an amazingly versatile singer, and on Friday, T-Bone Burnett & friends. I trusted that he would have excellent taste in friends, and yes, he did--the Punch Brothers, who I was really there to see, Steve Earle, Karen Elson, and a pair of women who knocked my socks off with their singing, the Secret Sisters. (I had never heard of them before, but they can count me as a fan now.)

This is my third year of attendance. I thought last year's crowd was unusually large because Steve Martin was there, but this year there seemed to be just as many people. It's wonderful to have such a great free festival in my neighborhood but they really need to consider moving part of it to the Polo Fields next year because it's just getting impossible to move. Not to mention, the stage at Marx Meadow is in a very non-ideal place, hard to get in and out of and the shape makes it difficult to see the stage from most places even if you manage to make it into the meadow. I am hoping the high attendance numbers for a second year in a row will help persuade the organizers to move the large stages to the Polo Field and the smaller ones to Speedway. (That is the setup at the Outside Lands festival in the park, which I have been to twice, and has a much smaller crowd.)

In any case it is nice that Warren Hellman provides all this. The festival has grown from 10k to 700k over 10 years, and I think it is definitely broadening the musical tastes of people in the city. On the other hand, it's a directly contributing factor in my picking up a banjo earlier this year, so maybe that offsets any good the festival has brought to the world. ;)