Last spring there began to be serious advertising for a rock festival in Rothbury, Michigan. That's up the other side of the lake (beyond Saugatuck, if you know the general area). The headliners were to be The Dead, Dylan, String Cheese Incident, and Willy Nelson, with a page-long list of more, from King Sunny Ade to Ani DiFranco to Toots and the Maytalls.
WOW!!
The tickets were $250, to set up a tent next to your car, with more luxurious packages priced in line . . .
WOW!!
Ah, but the fine print giveth and the fine print taketh away. They were recruiting for at least two pools of warm bodies, one to sort garbage on the Green Team, and one to be generally necessary all over the place. Work three six-hour shifts, and your ticket is free.
WOW!!

So I have a narrative of the long weekend to do, including getting there and back, and a variety of notes on current pop culture(s).

But my bottom line was:

King Sunny Ade

Finally got to see him live. Way fun. solid

Femi Kuti & the Positive Force

Perhaps the least exciting act I caught, but that's only me.

Flogging Molly

They kick names and take butt.

String Cheese Incident

One of the most important appearances of the show, since they haven't been playing lately. They have an enormous, fun following, but they just don't do it for me. I do not mean to insinuate they're bad, but for me, personally, there just isn't that much excitement.

Zappa Plays Zappa

Dweezil does do an excellent job of reproducing his father's complicated music, but, again just personally, it was like the best cover band in the world. It is a great band, all excellent, but I felt really odd about the performance. I wonder if other fans who saw Frank live have similar feelings.

The Dead

It's not quite the same band, it's not quite the same repertoire, and the show isn't organized quite the same way, but it's the real thing. THEY ARE HOT.
I lost most of the second set to my overnight work shift (to be detailed in a future episode), but the very second song was "Eyes of the World", which totally does me, so I was ok. And I did get to see the fireworks, since they were perfectly framed by the entrance to the mess tent where I was doing light cleanup.
The schedule had said 8 - 12. The two sets were 8:30-10:30 and 11-1. When I Googled “"the dead" rothbury setlist” the next morning, there were almost 2,000 hits. It's up to about 4,000 now.

Toots and the Maytalls

He's getting old.
Does every African diasppora group have a couple of women over on one side of the stage being hot? All three I saw at Rothbury did.

Matisyahu

I didn't catch his set, but he was right before Ani DiFranco, so I did run into the Chabadniks who were there harassing unobservant Jews to lay tfillin, just this once, right now.

Willie Nelson and Family

I really enjoyed being able to watch his fingers closely on the jumbotron. He doesn't need me to remind people, hey this guy is good

Ani DiFranco

My own biggest takeaway. I'd never seen her live; I now will at every opportunity. Now I understand how outside boundaries she is. Her lyrics are well within the general area I'd expect from a "singer-songwriter", ranging from purely personal to ragingly political, and she mostly was playing a big acoustic guitar. She leaps and jumps and athleticizes like a big-time rocker, at the same time. Just whatever she likes. A seriously hot performance.

Bob Dylan and His Band

The ruin of a once-lousy voice.
He still puts his old lyrics to completely different arrangements, sometimes. Actually, I could put "still" into most of what one might say.
He was in some sort of black suit and top hat, with his five-piece band in matching white jackets, strongly suggesting a big band.

Tags: on tour
Current Location: home again
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: http://www.righteousbabe.com/ani/