Columbus Monthly / February 2011 / Celebration of sound

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Celebration of sound

From Bruce Springsteen and Pearl Jam to the Swell Season and Mudhoney, musicians of every sort give fans an earful at favorite music festivals.

 

You probably know all about the music festivals here in our hometown: Comfest, the Jazz & Rib Fest, the Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival. But if you hop on a highway for a bit, you’ll find lots of other musical options in whatever genre you prefer. Here’s a taste of what to expect at four sure bets within a day’s drive of Columbus: the Nelsonville Music Festival, Detroit Jazz Fest, Heritage Music BluesFest and Bonnaroo.

 

Nelsonville Music Festival

Nelsonville may only be about an hour southeast of Columbus, but the city has a vibe that’s distinctly its own.

“Down here in Athens County and southeast Ohio, things have a little more casual feeling, and we like that,” says Brian Koscho, marketing and promotions coordinator for Stuart’s Opera House, which runs and manages the Nelsonville Music Festival. Koscho and executive director Tim Peacock want people to have a comfortable festival experience—to spend a weekend without feeling overwhelmed.

“We want to give the people who are coming from outside of here a glimpse of why we like working and living down here,” he says. “We’re trying to make it feel like somewhere you’ve been for a while, even if you’ve only been there for a little bit.”

While festivalgoers are getting that glimpse, they’ll be listening to a variety of national and regional acts playing a mix of folk, rock, folk-rock and country. You may hear some alt-rock, soul and funk, too, but overall the music at Nelsonville has a decidedly Americana bent. Previous headlining acts include Loretta Lynn, Willie Nelson, the Avett Brothers, the Swell Season, Mudhoney, Jolie Holland and Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings.

The festival, now in its seventh year, takes place in May at the Robbins Crossing Living History Site on the beautiful campus of Hocking College, with several stages that provide different flavors. The main stage is erected in a large field, with ample room for blankets, lawn chairs and people standing. Headlining acts usually play here.

The porch stage, which is literally a porch on the back of an old cabin, is a more intimate setting, but still has plenty of room for a few hundred people to take in the show. Often, if you miss a band on the porch stage, you’ll get a second chance to see them on the main stage at some point during the three-day festival.

The “no-fi cabin” is a unique Nelsonville experience. The cabin has bench and floor seating for around 30 people (or however many can squeeze in), and throughout the weekend artists perform unplugged with acoustic instruments. There’s no stage manager; the cabin runs itself, and an up-close experience with a Nelsonville musician in the no-fi cabin often is a highlight for festival attendees.

“Even though the festival has grown to 5,000 . . . you can still go back in the cabin and watch somebody play with no amps, with 30 other people on the floor,” Koscho says.

If you don’t want to drive back and forth from Columbus all weekend, the festival offers a camping area on-site, and a bunch of food vendors will make sure you don’t go hungry. A kids’ stage helps to keep younger ones entertained. (Lots of open space for running around helps, too.)

The festival has grown larger every year, but the organizers say they’ll continue cultivating the festival’s laid-back, homespun vibe—or, as Koscho says, “Figuring out ways to make it grow without losing the things that make it special.”

Nelsonville Music Festival, May 13 through 15, 2011. Weekend passes go on sale first; single-day passes likely will be available in April. For more information, visit nelsonvillefest.org or call Stuart’s Opera House at (740) 753-1924.

 

Detroit Jazz Fest

The Detroit Jazz Fest comes highly recommended by the folks at Columbus’s Jazz Arts Group, and it’s easy to see why. The festival, entering its 32nd year, attracts music lovers from all over the country, and those fans aren’t just there to eat festival food. They come to experience great jazz.

“It’s a very diverse and hip audience,” says executive director Terri Pontremoli. “You feel it the moment you’re there. A lot of times in outdoor festivals, people are there and it’s fun, but they’re not really listening. But our fans definitely come to hear music, and the artists often remark on what a special treat that is for them. It’s a holy experience.”

Because the festival has been around so long, it’s become a generational tradition for some families. “Each year there are lots of people who say, ‘I remember being taken to this festival in a stroller,’ ” she says.

The Detroit Jazz Fest takes up four days over Labor Day Weekend, with five stages of music going simultaneously from early Friday evening through Monday, ending around 10 or 11 pm each night. Between 500,000 and 700,000 people take in some jazz over the course of the long weekend. And the best part? It’s free.

“Because it’s free, and because it’s so open and friendly, you’ll see that the musicians will actually sit in the audience and check out each [other’s sets],” Pontremoli says. “It’s just a big love fest. It literally transforms Detroit every year.”

The downtown location also lends a unique vibe to the festival, one that’s fitting for the style of music being showcased, according to Pontremoli. “A lot of festivals are on fairgrounds, but jazz is so urban,” she says. “So when you’re sitting outdoors and you have the cityscape and the lights of the buildings and you look across the river and see Windsor [Ontario], it’s really great. It’s just the right environment. It has taken the music out of the nightclub.”

The entire festival is accessible on foot, thanks to the nearby hotels. Bring the whole family—there’s a Kid Bop area for pint-size music lovers, and food vendors abound.

Each year the festival has a theme to tie together all the artists; the theme for 2011 is “We bring you the world,” which will incorporate world music influences. The artist in residence will be drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts. Recent performers at the festival include Allen Touissant, Branford Marsalis, Dave Brubeck and many other well-known jazz artists.

If jazz isn’t necessarily your go-to genre of music, Pontremoli says not to be wary. “When the music and the quality of the performers is good, it’s captivating,” she says. “There are times when people are intimidated, like they’re afraid they’re not going to get it. But when they’re there and let themselves go and just be in the moment. . . . There’s something really cool about it.”

Detroit Jazz Fest, Sept. 2 through 5, 2011, in downtown Detroit, from Hart Plaza on the riverfront to Campus Martius Park. For more information, visit detroitjazzfest.com or call (313) 447-1248.

 

Heritage Music BluesFest

If you ask internationally renowned Columbus bluesman Sean Carney which nearby blues festival is his favorite, he’s quick to name the Heritage Music BluesFest in Wheeling, West Virginia. “Each year it’s a great lineup of what’s happening in blues today,” he says.

Now in its 11th year, the three-day summer event is a good example of the little festival that could, growing in size and reputation each year. “In the early years, if I had 250 people there on Saturday night I was lucky,” says festival director Bruce Wheeler. “Luckily, we were able to hold through the lean years.”

Now the blues festival gets about 2,500 people per day, and last year it won the Blues Foundation’s “Keeping the Blues Alive” award in the festival category. Wheeler says there are a few things that set the Heritage Music BluesFest apart from other blues festivals. For one, the Heritage Port Amphitheater, which is walkable from two hotels, is a waterfront venue, so the spectator environment is picturesque. And even with 2,500 people, it still feels intimate.

“Even if you’re at the back of the amphitheater, it almost feels like you’re close to the stage,” Wheeler says. “It almost feels like an overgrown blues club. Sometimes people will take festivals out to a big field and you’ve just got this big openness, but this is part concert, part club, part festival.”

While some festivals function as more of a concert, with a big-name headliner and a lot of opening acts, Wheeler says he programs it differently. “I don’t ever necessarily call the closing act a headliner,” he says. “From the opening act to the closing act of the whole weekend, the talent on the main stage and the second stage is first-rate.” The main stage features touring national acts, and the second stage is home to local bands from Wheeling and regional acts from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio and West Virginia.

Wheeler also tries to book acts that will take listeners on a ride through the blues. You’ll hear Delta blues, blues-rock, Texas blues, Chicago-style blues and everything in between, from performers that cross generations; last year’s festival included Joanne Shaw Tayler, a 20-something blues guitarist, alongside blues legend Pinetop Perkins, who’s now 97.

The festival isn’t unfriendly to kids, but you don’t see a whole lot of them, Wheeler says. “There’s nothing really there for the kids,” he explains. “They’d probably be bored being there all day.” Adults won’t have that problem.

Heritage Music BluesFest, Aug. 12 through 14, 2011, at Heritage Port Amphitheater, 12th and Water streets in downtown Wheeling, West Virginia. Three-day early-bird passes ($55) and VIP passes ($95 to $300) are available at heritagemusicfest.com, or call (304) 238-6064.

 

Bonnaroo

There aren’t many summer rock festivals bigger than Bonnaroo. It’s huge in area: a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee. It’s huge in attendance: 80,000 people. And the bands? It doesn’t get much bigger than Pearl Jam, Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead, Jay-Z, Metallica, Dave Matthews Band and Stevie Wonder, among others.

Bonnaroo started in 2002 with the purpose of “creating a great American rock music festival that was a camping event, similar to great European festivals like Glastonbury,” says Rick Farman of Superfly, one of the partners and co-founders of the festival. Farman says festival fans had a sour taste in their mouths after Woodstock 1994 and 1999, so there was a void in the marketplace. “We wanted to create something annual that fans would feel like was their own, run in a way that was sustainable,” he says.

In the beginning, Bonnaroo was mostly a haven for jam-band fans, with lineups catering to attendees with a penchant for Phish and Grateful Dead. But each year Bonnaroo has grown in its diversity of acts, now incorporating huge names in rock and hip-hop. And even though the 13 stages of music are the main attraction, the festival also brings in top-tier comedians such as Conan O’Brien, Chris Rock and Zack Galifianakis. There’s also a 24-hour cinema and beer festival at the event, Farman says.

Bonnaroo is one of the few large-scale, national camping festivals. “People come and live there for four days,” Farman says. “There’s a connection between the concertgoers that’s different from a normal festival. There’s a disconnect at other places.” Each year Farman hears stories about people meeting new friends or future spouses at the festival. “People have these life-changing experiences,” he says.

Now that Bonnaroo has been around for a while, some of the folks who attended the first couple of years now have kids of their own, and in response to the growing number of families, Farman says there’s a family camping area. He also notes that there are ready-to-go tents and camping equipment available to rent. For those who aren’t too excited about camping, there are now other ways to attend—you can rent an RV, stay at a hotel or go as a VIP.

While the 2011 lineup won’t be announced until later, Farman says to be prepared for some special things to celebrate Bonnaroo’s 10th anniversary this year.

Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, June 9 through 12, 2011, at Great Stage Park in Manchester, Tennessee. General admission tickets range from $224 to $249, plus fees. For more information, visit bonnaroo.com. n

 

Joel Oliphint is a freelance writer.