My notes for Saturday at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival went something like this : Sat – oh god its early. Phone not charged, amazing set – buy a thesaurus, monsterously good set – Matt Nakoa stalker, CD signing, wandering – Gypsy food, playing with Aaron Nathans and at the hot sauce tent, the moon again, Brother Sun makes do, horrible sound, cow damage, Pat Wictor’s advice and accolades, the Duhks, dirty limericks and friendly people. Raccoon dodge, so tired – huge spider. Pack out, collapse.
First off, let me give a shout out to Jack. We met Jack on Friday, just sitting around at the public dining tent. I don’t remember who started the conversation but his witty back-and-forth banter was better than any coffee for the following mornings of Falcon Ridge. Kristen and I stumbled across Jack every couple of hours around the grounds… in a vast sea of people in the sunshine and chaos he was a consistent friendly anchor. Yay for new friends!
Anywho – Jack or no Jack, Saturday morning came way too fast. I think I’d gotten about three hours of sleep, my phone hadn’t charged, and we met up at the Main Stage by 11am in order to load in for one of the potentially most important sets we’ve had in forever. I was a little worried that NO-ONE would come out at noon o’clock and we’d look out on an empty hill, but as we set up, though the hill certainly wasn’t as full as it was later in the night we still had a great crowd, and the AWESOME thing about being the first thing on the stage is we got a nice, leisurely, FULL SOUND CHECK – and indeed – it showed. Sound was incredible. Through out the rest of the weekend, most acts got 10 -20 minute line-checks at best, but there really is nothing quite like a great sound crew carefully making sure you’re happy before launching into your set and it was one of the smoothest, most powerful sets in ilyAIMY’s history.
In my opinion.
We rocked, we were charming, we were almost flawless. I can pick it apart, but we definitely made a splash. And afterwards, sitting in the signing tent autographing CDs, listening to Matt Nakoa and Jean Rohe in the background I knew we’d come to Falcon Ridge and been OURSELVES. We hadn’t dumbed down, folked down, softened or bent. We were ilyAIMY and we’d been Loved for what we ARE.
That was euphoric. In addition, Audrey Engdahl (formerly Audrey Morris) who’d introduced me to acoustic guitar, who’d been my first guitar crush – SHE was in the audience and came up to me afterwards. Even though she Lives in the DC area and drops by the store relatively frequently I can’t remember the last time she’d seen me play. Having her see me in THIS context – I was in tears as I hugged her and thanked her for making me what I am today.
The one difficulty at the signing tent was the one woman who kept asking “are you waiting for Matt Nakoa? If you’re not then I’m first in line for Matt Nakoa. I didn’t buy these CDs this year, but two years ago and I want Matt Nakoa to sign them. You don’t think he’ll mind do you? I’m going to ask him to sign them RIGHT HERE. TO me. I was first in line for Matt Nakoa.” She proceeded to get creepier and creepier… I didn’t see the eventual actual interaction betwixt her and Matt but I’m sure it was…. Interesting. One of our signees had a gash on her forehead from a cow. Different world.
Erf. I don’t know how much more of this I’ve got in me! Aaron Nathans and Mike Ronstadt invited me to play along with them. Then we played the Meier Hot Sauce tent. It was hot. We went to see Brother Sun. Sound over there was pretty awful and eventually died all together, but they did a great job of leading the audience in a song and it just filled the hill more beautifully than anything amplified. I’m actually writing this on Wednesday, August 26th and two reporters have just been shot on Live television and idiots are gleefully sharing the video on Facebook. I can’t focus on the positive right now.
Yeah – I have a LOT to process. Below are my notes from Sunday at Falcon Ridge :
Thoughts Include:
Sun – amazing sets – so good. Emotional moments – Elephant Joke – I killed it.
