Live it love it
Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 09:34AM I dunno, that's the phrase that came to me when I think of this weekend.
The Folk Fest was amazing - and the highlight was leaving my table at the beer tent, which incidentally I did often, and going to the front of the stage. The amazing thing about this Fest is how close you can get to the performers. Both the design of the stage and the small venue allow this.
So I'm standing maybe 15 feet from John Prine singing "Blow up your TV...", and the words, the emotion, his presence is just hitting me in the chest. And John has this huge grin on his face - delighting that his tune can bring so much joy and energy to a crowd of Canadians.
This happened quite a few times. I'd be sitting there having a cold one, listening to the music, and thinking, "this is great, but I wonder what it would be like up close." The stand outs were Calexico and Arrested Development. Especially Calexico - since you didn't really feel their energy from faraway. The horns were nice, kind of good Southern California groove was bopping along - but then up close, as Emeril would say, "BAM!" They were living it, and I was loving it.
I love when great art, music, writing whatever, can do that. But sometimes you have to lean in and get close.
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