Del Mccoury Band brings audience to its feet
For a brand-new music event, the Hocking Hills Music Festival had more of its ducks in a row than would seem possible.
On Friday, the first of two days of music, check-in was smooth and quick, with plenty of volunteers on hand; the sound system was well-calibrated; acts performed at their scheduled times; and two stages set up in close proximity guaranteed that the music would never stop for long and music-lovers would not have more than a few steps to travel.
The site of the new festival – a joint project of the Nelsonville Music Festival and Duck Creek Log Jam – is just a halfmile off Route 33 in Rockbridge, on rolling hills and fields surrounded by mature trees.
By 5:30 p.m., music had already been playing for 31⁄2 hours, and Cedric Burnside was playing soulful guitar on the main stage, accompanied on some of the numbers by a drummer and the nodding heads and slow-motion upperbody grooving of the audience.
The threatened rain held off, and clouds provided shelter from the sun. Kids, some wearing noise-dampening headphones, ran in circles around the field, and smoke, cigarette and other, occasionally wafted through the air.
The band Yarn played the sun down on the secondary stage with a set that ranged from mellow Americana to danceable, upbeat Texas swing, leading the audience in a call-and-response of “Hocking Hills/hocking Hills,” and seguing into an instrumental bass and drum frenzy.
The mood at the festival was laidback and relaxed. While some people stood by the stage, swaying with arms around companions, there was no anxious pushing or jostling for position, and many were contented to sit well back in camp chairs.
Watchhouse, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, started playing on the main stage as dark fell, for a long, leisurely set of dreamily amplified acoustic instruments, including mandolin, two string basses, guitar, fiddle, drums and keyboard taken up by six players.
Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz traded off lead roles and supplying harmony on the hypnotic songs from the band’s new album, most of which inspired quiet listening rather than dance, and which, particularly in the context of an outdoor concert, might have benefitted from some rhythmic variety.
Bluegrass legend Del Mccoury headlined Hocking Hills Music Festival
By the time headliner Del Mccoury took the stage with his band, the stars were out, and Mccoury lost no time in turning the energy up to maximum.
Bluegrass legend Mccoury, now 82, is a pure delight, with vocals as clear and precise as they are twangy and surprising, and an infectious chuckle that suggests he is having just as good a time as anyone else there, which is saying something.
He’s supported by a band every member of which could effortlessly carry a show on his own, including his sons Ronnie and Rob Mccoury on mandolin and banjo, Alan Bartram on bass and Jason Carter on fiddle.
The long set allowed each of them a chance to show off their individual talents, often with seemingly impossibly rapid-fire string work, as well as to harmonize together.
“Do some of you folks like murder ballads?” Mccoury asked, to enthusiastic response, and he obliged with some classics.
The material may have been dark – as in the blood-curdling “Henry Walker” – but Mccoury and the others kept the mood light in a set that made itself up as it went along, with Mccoury responding to requests for songs from his well-established repertoire of traditional and more contemporary bluegrass numbers, including the playful “Nashville Cats” and a tongue-in-cheek tribute to a woman who is “Hard on My Heart, Easy on My Eyes.”
By the time Mccoury and the others were a song or two into the set, even those who had been lounging through the day were on their feet, circling the stage and bobbing or bouncing to the music.
margaretquamme@hotmail.com