On the other side of the mike at Riverbend

After a decade of writing about Riverbend, it sometimes feels as if I’ve covered the festival from every possible angle.

I’ve hung out on the wings of the Coke Stage and developed a wicked headache from inhaling too much of Earth, Wind & Fire’s artificial smoke.

I’ve wandered around Riverfront Parkway with roaming performers and spent one exceptionally hot and sweaty day hanging out with a food vendor serving up fried gator tails by the cartload.

I’ve boarded boats on the river, crashed with the WTM Blues Band in Thorpe McKenzie’s swank tour bus and convened with a holographic cowboy in the Texas on Tour mobile unit/ hellscape. I even saw a man get laid out during a fistfight while Willie Nelson sang about peace, love and pot smoke.

Trying to think up new angles to cover each year can sometimes feel like a herculean task because, rightly or wrongly, I’ve long felt as if I’ve seen all there is to see and done all there is to do. With one notable exception. The one aspect of Riverbend I’ve always wanted to experience, but which seemed like a perennial no- go, was what it was like from the performer’s perspective.

On Sunday, I finally got to check that off my coverage bucket list after my band, Molly Maguires, performed on the Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union Stage.

For years, I’ve heard Friends of the Festival staff talk about how they treat in-town acts no differently than touring talent — same equipment, same greenroom expe-Casey Phillips rience, same deference. It sounded so idyllic and utopian that I dismissed it out of hand as a bunch of marketing spin. It’s not. From our load-in via golf carts to our egress on the same, my bandmates and I were treated, to my eyes, no differently than the other acts playing the stage that evening: Virginia Beach country rockers Roosterfoot and Texas funk blues trio The Peterson Brothers.

We were wined — well, Bud Lighted — and dined backstage, and the stage’s crew had us sounding better than we had any right to through equipment we normally would be shooed away from on grounds of sheer scruffiness.

Riverbend might not be the best paycheck the Mollies have ever made, but it was a blast, and our treatment was every bit as respectful as organizers suggested it would be.

My job is not and has never been to be a mouthpiece for Friends of the Festival. My duty is to call out deficiencies and flubs when I see them and praise when they do things well. And when it comes to the local artist experience, I can without reservation or hesitation say they’re on point.