and a river runs through it (Telluride Bluegrass 2011)

Rather than start this post about the Telluride Bluegrass Festival with a picture of an amazing headliner like Mumford & Sons, or the surprise stellar guests like Patty Griffin, I’m going to share that view up above instead: a cell phone snap taken while I sat inside my tent and looked out the zippered door. I think it captures something about this festival that you need to know, as foundation. As enticement to come next year.

I pitched my tent on slanty ground, deciding to sleep on river rocks just so that I could hear that powerfully rushing roar of water as I was falling asleep at night, and first thing when I woke up in the morning. When I rambled through the darkness at 2am each night to my waiting cocoon of nylon and synthetic down, I’d sit for a good half hour on the banks, just watching the water that came from far away and was heading who-knows-where, as the moon glinted off the fast-moving surface. I felt a deep peace, and a happiness.

After ogling the lineup of performers and arriving into the stunning natural beauty of the town (last year was my virgin year), the first thing you notice about Telluride Bluegrass Festival is that it is inherently different. People at this one are nicer. Strangers stop to both secure your unattended tent when it’s about to succumb to the ferocious winds and blow into the river (happened to me), and also when you are struggling to lug all your stuff out to where the carpool is going to meet (ditto). The staffers might not only watch your gear, but move it under a tarp when the skies open up and the rains begin. The bus driver loops back around once he’s off duty in the wee hours of the morning, because he hears on his radio that a gal needed a ride. Things like this strike me as exceedingly rare in this world of music festivals, and deeply appreciated.

I tell you all these things not to brag about what a goddamn nice weekend I just had, but to set the stage for the sorts of musical chemistry that spark effortlessly and burn glowing-orange within this fertile laboratory of music. All weekend long you’ll see musicians peppering each others’ sets, stepping off the stage to perform in the round, and just smiling a whole lot. Although my friends who bring in the acts have a keen ear for what works (old standards and new exciting acts), I think I would come no matter who was playing.

…So who did play?

These guys: Matthew & The Atlas

Matthew & The Atlas was the best new artist I saw at the festival. I’d written about their song “I Will Remain” many months ago, and listened to it probably a hundred times since then. I have these days where I just park on their MySpace, and blearily stumble out of it three hours (and the same four songs on repeat) later.

Rising out of the same Communion folk scene in London as their peers Mumford and Sons (who attended both Matthew & The Atlas shows I saw), Matt Hegarty’s smoky dark voice is wonderfully evocative, like it knows of sorrows that I haven’t met yet – and I’ve met me a few. It quavers with some echo of ancient wisdom, if that makes sense — like a wizened wizard lives inside this young man. Weird/magic. Plus there are banjo and handclaps and accordion, and prominent female harmonies and countermelodies. I promptly bought all three of the EPs they had for sale after the show. It’s been too long since I’ve let myself do that. Take me back to when the night was young, and another song was sung.

I Will Remain – Matthew & The Atlas

Worth waking up for

Two morning sets blew the early-riser Telluride crowd away, and both happen to be two of my personal favorites. The Head and The Heart were the first act I saw at Telluride this year, a fresh and crisp noontime set on Thursday, while Joe Pug played even earlier the next day, while the dew was still on the lawn. There may be nothing nicer in this world than hearing Joe Pug’s harmonica ringing out at 10am on a clean and bracing mountain morning, or watching THATH stomp and laugh and echo those three-part harmonies back off the rocky mountains all around us. Both acts did a fantastic job of converting the audience all around me with their smart songwriting and contagious passion for music. Previously unknown to most of the seasoned bluegrass crowd, I heard both names on everyone’s lips for the duration of the festival.

Hymn #101 – Joe Pug (how do you not have this song yet?! get it)

Looks like he would win a knife fight

This was my first experience seeing Steve Earle live. I deeply respect his music and songwriting, but had never before witnessed his live set. He performed with his wife Allison Moorer (“did I marry out of my league, or what?!” he asked), and I was surprised at the soft incisiveness of his performance. He looks hardened, but life seems to have worn off the painful edges and left this rich and gorgeous beauty in his music. I foresee myself entering a large Steve Earle period.

Amazing ladies unite

And YEAH, I got to see some of the most amazing women in my musical lexicon all in one weekend. I was mesmerized by Emmylou Harris (as I stood next to Marcus Mumford for it, both of us just beaming at her folksinging glory), then Patty Griffin just dropped on in unannounced for the Sunday morning gospel hour. Griffin has written some of my absolute favorite songs, including “Mary” (which KILLS me, EVERY single time) and “Top of the World.” She performed “Heavenly Day” — and it was.

Hearing the silvery-voiced Sarah McLachlan both made me feel very, very fifteen again, but also reminded me how many songs she has written that I’ve loved and not listened to in forever: “Path of Thorns (Terms),” “Good Enough,” “Hold On” — I surprised myself with the quantity of singing along I was doing. Her performance was strong and vibrant, and induced at least one of my 20-something year old male friends to go home and download her greatest hits album at 3:00am. But I won’t name names.

I would study vocab cards every night for you, Colin

Let’s just set this straight. Even though I know that frontman Colin Meloy of The Decemberists is happily married to a talented lady and has a kiddo, I could stand all day blossoming under the quenching rain of his perfect vocabulary. I’m a sucker for smarts and wit. It leads to marvelous music, and their show was a delight. Surveying the Telluride crowd, he praised us: “each man more rugged than the next, each woman more sundressed and sunkissed than the next.”

All the songs from The King Is Dead (one of the best albums of 2011 thus far for me) seemed custom-penned to be performed in a setting like Telluride. It is the rootsiest of the Decemberists albums for a while, maybe ever, and the harmonica and fiddle felt right at home. Bela Fleck joined Colin for a (fake) dueling banjos challenge (to “win Telluride”), while Benmont Tench and Jerry Douglas also came out for the final song, a cover of “When U Love Somebody” by The Fruit Bats.

So so so good.

When U Love Somebody (Fruit Bats) – The Decemberists

Final explosion of awesome

I don’t know why I thought that Mumford and Sons was not going to impress me again. So I’m figuring: I first saw them at SXSW 2009, at a small but hyper-potent daytime set at Maggie Mae’s outdoor stage. Having already been smitten by their songs, I fell instantly for their live show: “I felt more like me, only better, when their set spun off at full tilt. Jawdroppingly pure.” I named that set one of my favorite concerts of SXSW and the entire year. Last year at Telluride, they completely blew me away again – their very first show on Colorado soil, and everyone in the Sheridan Theater was singing at the top of their lungs, stomping so hard the floorboards shook. It felt like a secret exploding. I still get chills to think of it.

I was blind to my jadedness that assumed since they are huge on the radio now, since everyone seems to know their songs, that somehow their live show would have changed, becoming more diluted and sterilized. I could NOT have been more wrong, or more arrogant perhaps, to think so. They were completely incredible, playing in the pouring rain on Sunday night. It was the last show I saw (sorry, Robert, we had to get home ahead of the snow), and one of the most memorable. As the Punch Brothers played their set before the Mumfords (and covered Josh Ritter!), a frigid, steadily-increasing rain fell without ceasing, running in rivulets between my shoulder blades and dripping off the ends of my sweater sleeves. All the smart people pulled out their ponchos (me: not smart) and the audience turned into a sea of plastic primary colors. We shivered and were absolutely miserable.

But when Mumford & Sons took the stage, the crowd galvanized into one teeth-chattering supernova, singing with our heads back (“and Iiiiiiiii will hold on hope, and Iiiiiiii won’t let you choke / …and Iiiiiiiiii’ll find strength in pain and Iiiiii……”), dancing our frozen asses off. Not only was their set terrific (including Bela Fleck, Jerry Douglas, Abigail Washburn coming out to play along), but they still retain all the passion that made me love them in the first place.

For someone who has played as many shows as these guys have, it was truly something exceptional. I saw our rain-soaked joy reflecting back off their faces, and it was a wonderful way to end Telluride 2011.

Come to this festival next year.

Oh — and finally, should I introduce her to Isaac from Sasquatch?

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i still got the keys to let it ride

It’s early. The birds are chirping. The bags are packed (minus the sweet new camping gear I ordered, which Amazon.com is holding hostage) and the sold-out 38th annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival begins tomorrow. Today is a day for cars full of friends driving along the Arkansas River on our way into the mountain haven of Telluride.

The Denver Post’s Reverb music writers and I will be sharing a ride over the hills, and, because I have found my people (who TRULY UNDERSTAND WHAT IS IMPORTANT), we have made a collaborative mix to bring in the car and feature on both our sites. Because that is what music writers do when faced with a daunting task. We work together and make a mix; ten songs each.

These songs are a little rootsy, some about travel, many about summer, and most about love.

And yes, I do fully comprehend the cruel irony of a roadtrip driving mix only being available in a streaming format.

THE ROAD TO TELLURIDE TRACKLIST

Side A: Fuel/Friends
1. “Let It Ride” – Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
2. “Stop The Bus” – Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
3. “July 4, 2004″ – Jason Anderson
4. “Can’t Hardly Wait” – The Replacements
5. “Another Travelin’ Song” (live) – Bright Eyes
6. “Unless It’s Kicks” – Okkervil River
7. “We’re All Stuck Out In The Desert” – Johnathan Rice
8. “Penny On The Train Track” – Ben Kweller
9. “Walt Whitman Bridge” – Marah
10. “You Are The Everything” (R.E.M) – Redbird

Side B: Reverb
1. “The Modern Age” – The Strokes
2. “Louisiana” – The Walkmen
3. “That’s Not The Issue” – Wilco
4. “Poor Man” – Old Crow Medicine Show
5. “Wide Open Road” – Johnny Cash
6. “Arms Like Boulders” – The War On Drugs
7. “Freak Train” – Kurt Vile
8. “Lost Highway” – Hank Williams
9. “The Mountain” – Steve Earle & the Del McCoury Band
10. “Pretty Girl From Cedar Lane” – The Avett Brothers

I’ll be updating my Twitter and other social media-type things from the festival as connectivity allows (I believe you will be able to stream the festival on KOTO.org!), and I will be back next week, sated with all that good music ringing in my ears.

[top image: U.S. Route 285 South, just over Kenosha Pass. Photo by John Hendrickson. Photo illustration by Marc Hobelman, Denver Post]

Telluride Bluegrass 2010 (or: two of my favorite shows in two days)

The Telluride Bluegrass Festival is a behemoth of goodness and gorgeousness. Nestled in the crevasse of huge mountains, surrounded by forests and rivers (I kept thinking of the Josh Ritter lyric, “The lake was a diamond in the valley’s hand” all weekend), it definitely wins for musical escapism. I spent last weekend at the 37th annual festival that brings a loosely-defined group of bluegrass musicians together in the mountains of Colorado, far from where the direct roads and highways go. Six or seven hours from the most populated areas of the state, it seemed like a wonderland when we arrived.

I felt like a bit of an interloper, coming to the festival for the less-traditional indie artists with crossover appeal. I was absolutely there for the opportunity to see Josh Ritter and Mumford & Sons, each playing Nightgrass shows in teensy 250-person venues. It was an added bonus for me to see artists like Ben Sollee, Dave Rawlings & Gillian Welch, Alison Krauss, and the Court Yard Hounds (2/3 of the Dixie Chicks, who I forgot how damn much I used to like). I’ll admit I was unfamiliar with many of the other musicians, being fairly unsteeped in the bluegrass tradition, but interested to hear whatever I could absorb.

On Thursday, I woke at 5am-something in my comfortable bed, threw my tent and sleeping bag into the trunk, and set off into the mountains. The drive that is quickly becoming one of my favorites in Colorado (tracing the Arkansas River) passed quickly, and I got to the festival minutes before Josh Ritter & The Royal City Band were scheduled to start. I walked down into the breathtaking mainstage area as his opening strums of “Southern Pacifica” were just beginning. Electrified, I hustled to plant myself right in the front of waves of his songs carrying out towards the mountains on all sides. Looking out between songs, Josh mused, “This is as good as it gets.”

He interspersed songs from his new album (like “Lantern” and “Folk Bloodbath”) along with some of my favorites like “Girl In The War” –I cried at these lines– “Monster Ballads” and “Kathleen.” It was also wonderful to hear a few real old ones like “Harrisburg” and “Me and Jiggs” (we are all half-crazy, and all at least half alright, indeed). I haven’t seen him live since summer ’08, and I can report that his ebullient enthusiasm is still 100% intact. The crowd cheered with as much strength as you can squeeze out of folks at 3pm on a gorgeously sunny Thursday, many hearing him for the first time. Josh looked out at the colorful crowd and laughed: “I had a lot of things to say but . . . I’m speechless.”

MY BRIEF VIDEO OF “LANTERN” @ TELLURIDE

After his set, I went to set up camp and I had gotten a parking ticket and didn’t even care. That’s what Josh Ritter does to me; careless disregard for parking laws and other mundane things of this society.

I missed the Dave Rawlings Machine set while I attended to the necessary work of tent-constructing, but I heard the glorious strains of “Look At Miss Ohio” weaving their way to the campsite as I pounded stakes. As the afternoon turned to evening, I walked over to the Fly Me To The Moon Saloon to interview Josh Ritter. You’ll hear more about this soon, but it was as marvelous as I had hoped. What a gem of a human being, as well as a songwriter and performer.

After our interview and hugs concluded, I caught just a few songs of the heavenly-voiced Alison Krauss’ set back at the main stage (she really does sound that pure and untarnished in real life, and it is amazing). My favorite part of the set was probably “Down To The River To Pray” with Union Station — the bookend to hearing another song from the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in California last summer. There’s something about bluegrass music that just sounds so right amongst the trees on a late summer afternoon.

Then it was back for my second Josh Ritter show of the same day. I thought that the night concert was even better than the daytime one for me, because a) I like the nightlife and b) it was shoulder to shoulder in a small venue, the energy concentrated in every song. This one was more fiery, more urgent, more sweaty as we danced together in the tiny basement club. Moments that I remember especially clearly:

-getting to hear both “Wolves” and “Snow Is Gone” in the same set, songs that have meant a lot to me in the past year and just rupture beautifully live.

-a completely heartbreaking-in-every-way cover of Springsteen’s “The River” — the room felt so heavy and overwhelmed when he sang those lines, “now I act like I don’t remember, and Mary acts like she don’t care…”

-turning out every light in the house and singing an acoustic version of “In The Dark,” one that we all sang along to in near-reverence, and I cried like a girl with a skinned knee. Or maybe skinned heart.

Ed Helms from The Office is a huge bluegrass fan, and an Oberlin alum like Josh, so he came up on stage to play banjo during “Next To The Last Romantic” (the kid next to me said to his friend, “WHOA. He looks just like Andy Bernard from The Office!”). Rocking:

Finally, for the closing encore song, the whole band came out and stood arm-in-arm, next to Josh on acoustic guitar, and we all joined in to sing “Wait For Love (You Know You Will).” It’s the last song on 2007′s The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter, and those closing minutes just overflowed with warm feelings — a mutual encouragement to us all. I was amazed for some reason at how everyone there seemed to know all the words, even on the verses. He certainly has created a legion of dedicated fans.

The band left the stage and the crowd started to gather their things, but Josh closed with this, all by himself, hands clasped behind his back. It felt like a benediction.

Friday started quite pleasantly, hearing the strains of Kentucky cellist Ben Sollee from the main stage as I toweled off from my camp shower ($3 in quarters for five minutes of hot water, a very decent trade). With my hair still wet, I meandered over to see him open the day with his plaintive, elegant, curious, articulate music.

Ben had opened for Josh Ritter the night before, but I was so overwhelmed and out of it from the interview that I was glad for the chance to see him again clear-headed. This extremely talented guy does wondrous things with a cello, an instrument I love. The resonance of a cello is swollen with sadness to my ears, like a lugubrious river, but Ben’s voice of clever levity cuts through it like a sharp speckled rock, parting the current.

I have been listening a lot in these past months to his new album Dear Companion (Sub Pop, 2010) with Daniel Martin Moore (produced by Jim James and starring a few of those rakish These United States-ers), as well as his 2008 debut album Learning To Bend. Ben’s songwriting is quick and intelligent, and he continues to grow marvelously as an artist. I highly recommend his music.

After a few afternoon hours spent putting as much of our bodies as we could stand into the crystalline glacial river, while the bluegrass floated from the stage in the background, we dried off and headed in for the Court Yard Hounds. Sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Robison were back at the Telluride festival on the 20th anniversary of them first winning the band competition as teenagers, back before they became Dixie Chicks and ruled country radio.

I was dazzled by them, their poise and beauty and sparkles, and how they rocked such a wide variety of instruments – fiddle, banjo, mandolin, dobro. They referred to their new album as being not only a divorce album, but also one about finding love, and covered Joni Mitchell’s “This Flight Tonight,” a song Emily said got them through some dark times. The only Dixie Chicks song they played was the bluegrass instrumental, “Little Jack Slade.”

Three little girls stood right in front of me by the stage, all 5 or 6 years old, twirling and dancing in various tutus and wands and tie dyed clothes. I thought about what women they are for those girls to look up to, literally and figuratively. They were strong and confident, and I was drawn to the emotional rawness and feistiness on their new songs. After they finished, and I caught me some Lyle Lovett and his (no kidding) Large Band, it was Friday night, and it was time for the Mumford & Sons show.

There is something primal and exceedingly honest in the harmonies and vocal melodies of London quartet Mumford & Sons, especially when you’re standing five feet away from their kickdrum that often provides the only percussion, and hits like a mallet to the sternum. I’ve loved them unabashedly since the first time I heard them, and I named their Sigh No More album one of my favorites of 2009. Telluride on Friday night witnessed their very first proper show in Colorado — and I imagine I will never again see a band playing their first show in a state where absolutely everyone sings along to every word, jumping giddily so hard that the floor bounces. The reception in that room blew me away, and led me to predict that this band will soon grow as huge in the States as they are in the UK, with as wide of an audience as their music deserves.

I’ve had a really difficult time trying to figure out how to tell you all about this show. I was talking to my best friend Bethany on the phone yesterday, trying to articulate what it was that so confounded me, satisfied me, and left me speechless and breathless all at once. “There’s a memory in our blood of people singing together the way those guys do,” she mused. “It triggers something bigger and older than us.” I’ve struggled to write about their show because it was so intense and meaningful, and as I wrote earlier in the week, one of the best shows I have absolutely ever seen.

Through a towering wall of power, their songs wrestle with love and grace, redemption and loss, struggling to be a better man — sometimes succeeding, and sometimes failing and burning. It’s the most relatable music I know of these days, on an acutely personal level, and seeing them blow the roof off live just about overwhelmed me in the best possible way.

The basics: 300 people at a very sold-out show in the Sheridan Opera House, built in 1912 and still boasting the old warm globe lights around the stage, hand-painted detail on the balcony front. They started their set long after midnight with their four voices rising together for “Sigh No More,” quickly launching into “Awake My Soul” and an explosive rendition “The Cave,” then a huge new song called “Lover of the Light,” featuring lead singer Marcus Mumford behind an actual drum kit, instead of standing up and playing the bass drum while he strums. There was an ineffable joy and powerful hope rising up from the crowd – watch this video of “Roll Away Your Stone” from a few weeks ago in Los Angeles with the band The Middle East. I think we all felt like that.

After “Timshel” and “Little Lion Man” (crowd went nuts for their big single), they did “After The Storm,” “Dustbowl Dance,” an older song “Sister,” and another new song called “Nothing Is Written.” A tremendous version of “White Blank Page” was their encore. After those lines about “tell me now, where was my fault / in loving you with my whole heart?” at about three minutes into the song, the instruments cut out and that stirring vocal interlude begins — man, you can’t write it, but it’s the “ahhhhh, ahhhhhhhh, ah ah ah….” part (see? words fail me). The whole room started singing, louder and louder, and the walls were soaking in it and vibrating as we sang. Then the band picked up the urgent higher harmonies, and it was the closest to church I’ve been in a while.

Like this, very very much:

(all of this girl’s videos from their Dallas show are very good, and replicate almost exactly my vantage point in the crowd, and the way this show felt to me)

I left their show feeling so thoroughly sated and completely without coherent words, which is rare for me who always has words, and lots of them, for most occasions. I stayed behind to shake each of the band member’s hands, just so I could say “thank you.” Just a simple, heartfelt thank you for what they just put me through, and for the seams they ripped open and then helped mend. All my receptors were vibrant and content.

Walking home from that show at 2am on Friday night still glowing, I passed Ed Helms again, playing banjo on a street corner jam session, then a few blocks closer to the campsite I came across (pretty sure) Peter Rowan calling impromptu square dancing steps while playing the fiddle to a roiling flailing bunch of colorful folks while the cops looked on, bemused with arms crossed.

I tilted my head back at the ten million stars, a sky so dark I could see the bands of the Milky Way, and crossed a footbridge over the singing river to my campsite. Someone had left glow bracelets and glowsticks scattered in the inky blackness to help me find my way home. Welcome to Telluride.

I smiled, and was very very happy.

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