I’m Back!

Hello everyone! I know it’s been a whole week since I posted anything and I assure you there’s a good reason for that: I’ve been at a Bluegrass Festival.

We left last Wednesday to go to Greyfox Bluegrass Festival in Oak Hill, New York, so Tuesday was spent packing and generally running around frantically like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get everything ready to go.

Wednesday morning we hitched our bright yellow teardrop trailer up to our Porsche Cayenne and hit the road. After a seven hour drive – most of which was spent yelling at our GPS for wanting to take us through heavy traffic on the interstate – we arrived at the festival.

Greyfox takes place on Walsh Farm in Oak Hill, New York. The festival grounds consist of a vast grassy field leading up to a hill and bordered by a creek. As the week progresses, the field fills up with tents and cars and campers as people arrive and set up their campsites. To call them campsites does not do justice to the festival campsite. They are works of art, generally consisting of multiply tents and canopies joined together. People erect showers of two-by-fours and tarps, they hang brightly colored tapestries, they decorate their plots with lawn ornaments. Some people even bring their lawn mowers to mow their camp sites.

A little city just springs up out of nowhere, complete with shopping and restaurants as there are vendors selling jewelry, clothing, camping supplies, kettle corn, BBQ…

There are three main stages: one on the hill called the High Meadow Stage, where the audience sits in the lawn chairs in the grassy stretch that leads further up the hill to where there are more campsite to be found. The second stage is the Creekside Stage, positioned at the bottom of the hill, just below the High Meadow Stage. This stage is covered by a tent and chairs are provided. It is an intimate stage. The third stage is the Catskill Stage where there is a dance floor and the music plays long into the wee hours of the morning.

There is music everywhere, not just on the stages, but all throughout the camp. And that’s the wonderful thing about Bluegrass Festivals: nearly everyone in the audience is a musician and a big part of the festivals consists of late night jams that go on long after the shows have ended.

For me it was like a little piece of paradise. Everyone was happy and smiling. Everyone shared a common purpose. People could just be in the moment, loving the music, not caring what anyone else thought because they were surrounded by people who loved the same things.

I’m definitely going to go back next year. In fact, there’s a part of me that wishes we’d discovered the festival earlier so that I could have grown up with Bluegrass Music and in the Bluegrass community. I suppose I’ll just have to make up for it by taking my children, when I have children.

And now, I have a confession to make, something I’ve been hesitant to admit, but will now do so publicly: I love Bluegrass. I love the music, I love the people, I love the sense of community, I may not care for a lot of the more traditional murder ballads or the extremely religious songs, but I love how the genre is growing and evolving while still recognizing and revering it’s roots. I can’t wait to see where Bluegrass goes in the future and I hope that in some way – no matter how small – I can be a part of that future.

Thank you for reading.