1 August 2008 - 21:25Music festivals
There’s a wild time going on in West Virginia this weekend. The Appalachian String Band Music Festival is a mecca for old-time musicians all over the country. I’d guess a good 3,000 people are crammed into every possible camping space at Camp Washington Carver in the little town of Clifftop. There will be fiddle, banjo, and band contests, not to mention clogging. There will be tunes in the campground all day long and all night. Some of the greatest, funniest, most interesting people I’ve ever met will be there. But I won’t.
It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been to the festival in Clifftop. About ten years ago, I just got tired of camping. I especially got tired of camping around hundreds of people whose priority was playing tunes, drinking, and hollering at all hours of the night. Now I’ll admit to having engaged in such behavior myself when I was younger. But I’m not the same person any more.
Still, I remember fondly the transcendent moments I experience while at a festival. One night I’ll never forget was about eight or nine years ago, at the Bluegrass and Old-Time Fiddlers Convention in Mt. Airy, North Carolina. It was a warm, clear night, around midnight. I had gone there alone, and was at that moment strolling from jam to jam with no one but myself for company. All I know is that the music was so good that I felt a peace within myself unlike the way I usually felt, which was insecure and lonely. I looked up into the sky at all the stars, with the music wrapping around me like a ribbon and I realized that at that moment, I was exactly where I belonged in the universe. All was right with the world because I was at that festival, hearing that music.
Moments like that at a festival are the exception, though, not the rule. I hate trying to sleep while a couple of drunks decide to have a yelling match outside my tent at 5:00 a.m. It’s not like it’s safe for a single woman to speak up for herself in that situation. And then there’s waiting in a line for an hour for a hot shower in a concrete bath house. Don’t get me started on the PortaJohns.
About four years ago, I met Bob, who will listen to old-time music, and even likes some of it. I’m fortunate that he also likes to dance. But festivals are really for people who play the music, and not much fun for those who don’t, especially if all their spouse wants to do is chase jam sessions all weekend. So, between my dislike of camping, and my desire to not make Bob endure a whole weekend of boredom, I’ve stopped going to the big festivals like Clifftop and Mt. Airy. Fortunately, there’s the Rockbridge Mountain Music and Dance Convention in September. It’s small enough, and Bob knows enough of the people for both of us to have a good time. I’ll be there again this year, and since Bob has taken up the ukulele, we’ll even play together there with some other folks we know.
To all my friends who are in Clifftop right now, I say, “Whoop it up!” I’ll be thinking of you. And I’ll have some of you over in a couple of weeks so you can tell me all about it.
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