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By Chris Streng and Jon Pruett
The spirits of Ma and A.P. Carter themselves must have pulled some
heavenly strings the weekend of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
festival. There was a last minute reprieve granted somewhere, and
our impending weekend of dour conditions turned into a bright blue
haven - it couldn't have been a nicer day. As the last day rolled
in, accompanying it were the occasional bursts of fog, gradually
turning to mist as the sun sank down. But otherwise, the day began
with the kind of sunny Indian summer morning that is a foggy old
San Fran. An event this huge, both physically and artistically, can
be daunting for the casual listener but the crowd came prepared
with blankets, folding chairs, hats, sweaters and rolling coolers.
The game plan seems to be this: bring a chair, find a stage and
stay there. The early morning blend of sound-check noises, radios,
intermission music, and ring tones was reminiscent of a very large,
very twangy orchestra tuning up.
photo: jay blakesberg
Banjo Stage opener Dale Ann Bradley delivered the kind of spirited,
joyous performance that typified the vibe of the day. Practically
every artist made a special point of thanking Warren Hellman and
the volunteer staff and few could contain their gratitude about
being asked to play at all. On the Arrow Stage, folk pioneer Ramblin'
Jack Elliot struggled to be heard over the enthusiastic din of Dale
Ann Bradley but his sparse rendition of Dylan's "Don't Think Twice
It's Alright" earned him a standing ovation from the crowd. The
Wronglers laid out the welcome mat at the Porch Stage, featuring
an eclectic cast of players including Warren Hellman (on banjo),
his wife Chris, Ron Thomason (Dry Branch Fire Squad), Ana Egge, and
others. Saturday Night Live alumni G.E. Smith followed
with some of the most enthusiastic strumming of the day and
a taut a capella version of the coal mining classic "Dark As a
Dungeon." Eclecticism was another order of the day on the heavily
shaded Rooster Stage where 4 Year Bender's rootsy mix had the modern
hippies swaying and Kevin Welch, Kieran Kane, and Fats Kaplin jammed
with a raga-tinged intensity. The morning highlight of the Rooster
Stage was a standing-room only performance from festival favorite
Iris Dement. The Star Stage was large enough and far-removed enough
to almost qualify as a separate festival. One wonders if some
festival goers even knew it was there. Those who could locate the
stage saw Chip Taylor and Carrie Rodriguez let their considerable
songwriting talents do the talking. The fleet fingers of Keystone
Station greeted the steady stream of revelers at the Porch Stage
and bluegrass pioneer Hazel Dickens received a roaring ovation on
the Banjo Stage before even singing a single note. Dickens is the
living embodiment of the bluegrass tradition and she did not let
the teeming crowd down. The Arrow Stage had the most relaxed seating
area of the festival with a large, grassy section full of hula-hooping
children, Frisbee circles and dogs gleefully off their leashes. By
early afternoon, the Flying Other Brothers were there invoking the
spirit of the Grateful Dead with their ethereal, folk-tinged jams,
replete with tasty electric licks courtesy of Porch Stage veteran,
G.E. Smith.
As the afternoon heated up, it wasn't uncommon to see parents
spraying their children with a soaker hose and more than one cooler
full of beer was being opened. Best dressed honors went to a
shirtless, barefoot jogger waving a huge Grateful Dead flag and to
an otherwise normal-looking man with a huge snake wrapped around
his neck. Cowboy hats and boots were practically mandatory for the
female fans while the males ran the spectrum from tie-dyes and pony
tails to curious joggers in running shorts. The imposed ban on
tobacco use did little to stem the use of other smoke-able substances
and business appeared to be brisk for the Alice B. Toklas brownie
vendors.
This year saw a little bit of relocation for the Star stage, leading
to a bit of a trek through the backwoods of Golden Gate park. A
handful of confused folks and people who literally did go off the
beaten path are making it through the brush looking to catch the
duo known as Freakwater do a set in the early afternoon. Freakwater
have an impressive run of albums on the indie label Thrill Jockey,
where they stand out pretty strongly against a roster of experimental
and studied indie rockers. They fit pretty well amidst the smorgasbord
of HSBF, where families, loners, couples, punks, cowboys, hippies,
vagabonds, weekend warriors and a fair amount of elementary school
teachers congregate with a fairly blind eye turned towards the
specific acts of the day - people were there to enjoy the music,
knock back an organic burrito, and wash it down with some sort of
liquid - beer by the case-full, seemed to be the preferred beverage.
But Freakwater, with their tight harmonies and familiar country
phrasing, couldn't have been better suited for this crowd.
photo: jay blakesberg
Seeing that the Star stage was the furthest out west, it made sense
that one of the louder acts on the bill, the unabashedly rocking
Drive-By Truckers, would find their home tucked back at the
geographical tail end of the event. The group play a raucous mixture
of Stones-ish riff rock with a fair amount of Southern-fried drawl
to make everyone feel like getting loose. Throw in the roar of the
Blue Angels overhead and the sight of what looks like someone's
grandmother running in place to this neo-classic rock, and there's
no doubting that San Francisco is in fine form today. While we can't
be sure, it seems that there is some sort of chemical reaction that
occurs whenever anyone hears a lick that sounds like it could have
come off of Lynyrd Skynyrd's Gimme Back My Bullets, or the Allman
Brothers' Eat A Peach that just makes people want to toss of their
shirts, pump their fists in the air, and just shout "yeah" repeatedly.
Not even the generally mellow thrillseekers at HSBF were immune to
the group's charms. The young boy to the right, who couldn't have
been more than three, seemed to alternate watching the show with
fetching sticks out of the bushes, stopped and yelled, "I love rock
'n' roll!" He had a point. Hardly strictly bluegrass, indeed.
photo: jay blakesberg
But as the day was going by quickly and the shows were happening
just as fast, it was time to head off and explore a new avenue. The
Rooster stage is always a hot spot at Hardly Strictly. Something
about the way that the stage is dead set within a valley surrounded
by felled trees, sloping green hills, and twisting paths makes the
sound reverberate just a tiny bit more. It also gives a hint of
exclusivity that the other stages lack. That's generally why you'll
find everyone practically dangling off of every spare branch and
perched on top of every rock or doubled up on anything remotely
grasslike. Add in the fact that it's Elvis Costello who's holding
court down in thick of it with buddy T-Bone Burnett in the guise
of the Coward Brothers and you can imagine just how strong the
enthusiasm is by this point. He definitely knows he's playing to a
west coast audience as his set is wrapped up with some suitably
stripped-down covers of Scott McKenzie's summer-of-love classic,
"Are You Going to San Francisco?" and the Byrds' "So You Wanna Be
a Rock 'N' Roll Star." You can't say that the earth moved, but a
few hundred trees were rattled to be sure. As the set ends, it's
clear that the crowds aren't lessening any despite Costello's
absence. Either this crowd is entirely made up of rock critics, or
just about everyone knows what a brilliant guitarist Richard Thompson
is. True to form, Thompson shuffles out in trademark baseball cap
and lights into a set that starts out with just his urgent voice
and some quick guitar accompaniment. As he gets into more involved
in the set, he lights into "Walking On a Wire" and over the course
of the next few tracks, he slowly starts unveiling this spiralling
guitar leads that are far from showy, but are entrancing in their
complexity and dexterity - it's like he's playing guitar with four
hands. Wading through clearing surrounded by thick trees, his
otherworldly guitar provides an almost haunting soundtrack - you
almost feel like your caught in a deleted scene from the Grizzly
Bear documentary (which Thompson provided the music for).
photo: jay blakesberg
By this time, the countdown is on and the last hurrah must be chosen
wisely. Having missed the Arrow stage's Flying Other Brothers,
acoustic Hot Tuna, and Richie Furay (whose set is currently winding
down), it's either catch the Bay Area acoustic powerhouse the
Waybacks do a set with Bob Weir or catch up with some country royalty
in the form of Miss Emmylou Harris. Feeling indecisive, we opt for
double duty and decide to catch some of the Waybacks fiery flatpicking
before it becomes apparent that it's just too hard to evade Emmylou's
charms - especially when she's backed with a parade of bluegrass
veterans pulled from the Seldom Scene and the Tony Rice Unit. For
the end, she pulls out Hazel Dickens and its nearly impossible to
choke down the feeling that something special just happened. It's
hard not to flinch a little when it's overheard that Gillan Welch
and David Rawlings hopped up and joined the Waybacks for a finale,
but as the mist settles down with the sun and Golden Gate Park truly
does look a bit golden, and the crowd slowly disperses back into
their various rivers of life - it becomes apparent that another
successful has come and gone. Another one for the history books.
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