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Smilefest celebrated its tenth anniversary with the strongest and most diverse lineup of bands in its history. Billed as a "Celebration of Peace, Love & Music in the North Carolina Sunshine," the festival that started as a celebration of the life of Jerry Garcia has turned into one of the Southeast's premier jam and bluegrass festivals. This year they added a third stage and brought almost 50 bands to the pastoral settings of Van Hoy Farms Family Campground in the farmlands of Union Grove, NC. A huge kids' area and a space dedicated to local non-profits and community service groups helped entertain and educate folks in between the music.
THURSDAY
Barefoot Manner with Keller Williams
Smilefest 2004 by Balthazar |
The festival opened Thursday night with the neo-cosmic spacegrass of Barefoot Manner. These Raleigh, NC natives have been steadily expanding their fan base and appearing at festivals throughout the south. Guest saxophonist Myron Koch sat in for a set of funky explorations and rollicking bluegrass. Keller Williams joined the jam jesters for their encore, adding spacious jazz chords and mouth trombone to "After Midnight." Barefoot would return for another set on Friday, as well as leading the kids' parade through the festival grounds on Saturday.
Keller's own manic set followed, where he paid special tribute to the roots of Smilefest, running through the Grateful Dead's "Brown-Eyed Women," "Mr. Charlie," "St. Stephen," and "Dancing in the Street." Clever originals including "Gatecrashers Suck" and "Sing for My Dinner" joined more choice covers including The Beatles' "Rocky Raccoon," Michael Franti & Spearhead's "What I Be" to wrap up the set, and Sublime's "What I Got" for the encore.
Umphrey's McGee :: Smilefest 2004 by Jon Leidel |
The shape-shifting supermen of Umphrey's McGee had the headline slot for the first evening of Smilefest. A huge crowd had assembled but there was plenty of room inside the spacious Shed Stage. They tore through an expansive set of sonic pyrotechnics that aimed for outer space and never looked back. The only earthbound moments came when they settled back into radio-frequency range and picked up covers of Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" and an encore of Bob Marley's "Trenchtown Rock."
The night contained one more surprise, as G-13 set on the Homegrown Stage for an unannounced late-night set. Their upbeat funky rock was expanded with Barefoot Manner's Hank Smith and Shawn Chase adding ferocious banjo and mandolin solos to "I Know You Rider." Glow sticks sailed above the crowd as the moon crossed the sky and the first night of Smilefest drew to a close.
FRIDAY
Ease into the day with acoustics. Or at least that was the plan. What we didn't expect was the vaudeville onslaught of Special Ed and The Shortbus Bluegrass Band. Opening up the brand new Hydro Stage, Special Ed brought a mix of old-time stomp and medicine-show theatrics. The band featured guitar, banjo, mandolin, fiddle, washboard, kazoos, and even an armpit solo. Yes, an armpit solo, and a musical one at that. No mere novelty, these pitsqueaks varied in tone and pitch, and even contained their own little melody. It was truly the greatest thing I saw all weekend. Their setlist ranged from originals about groundhogs and New Orleans to traditional covers like "Sweet Georgia Brown," which included a beautiful fiddle solo and a raucous banjo undercurrent. A freewheeling take on Frank Zappa's "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance" > "What's the Ugliest Part of Your Body?" led straight into a sideways version of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun."
Raisinhill :: Smilefest 2004
By Gabriel Nelson |
The rock adventurism of The Redbelly Band and the acoustic jazz-grass of Old School Freight Train lit up the morning as Raisinhill prepared to unleash their instrumental jazz-rock chameleon on the Homegrown Stage. Guitarist John Kasiewicz raged through the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" as well as originals including "Big Top Cowboy" and "Maker's Mark." The energy proved so intense that bassist Brian Anderson grabbed his upright bass and started jumping with it before ending up flat on his back, still plucking away. Drummer Jay Bond held down the groove as his band mates propelled themselves into the stratosphere.
Another set by G-13 led into the rich bluegrass textures of the Biscuit Burners and the ethereal jazz-inflected rock of Mountain of Venus. Local mandolin legend Tony Williamson burned through a set with his band, while over on the Shed Stage one of the most furious musical assaults of the entire weekend was about to unfold. Bassist Jonas Helborg is part of that dreaded, feared sub-species of jazz known as... wait for it... jazz *fusion*. Dim the lights and hide the kids. The combination of Helborg's bass, Paul Hanson's otherworldly bassoon acrobatics, and Jeff "Apt. Q-258" Sipe's drums proved an amazing amalgam of styles and moods. They scratched and scraped through an intense set of propulsive music, digging in deep to extract as much as possible from each passage.
Deep Fried :: Smilefest 2004
By Gabriel Nelson |
The Zen Tricksters followed with a set of adventurous extrapolations, even touching on the Grateful Dead's poignant classic "Morning Dew." Appalachian reggae stalwarts Ras Alan & the Lions welcomed Acoustic Syndicate's Jay Sanders on bass for a tasty set of mountain grooves which also saw Syndicate's Jeremy Saunders joining on sax for a few numbers. Combining the sweet rhythms of reggae with a traditional bluegrass outlook resulted in a unique combination of sounds that were perfect for the afternoon sunshine.
Deep Fried is a new supergroup consisting of former Allman Brothers keyboardist Johnny Neel and drummer Matt Abts from Gov't Mule, along with guitarist Brian Stoltz and bassist George Porter, Jr., who both clock in time with the Funky Meters. Despite the deep catalog these bands boast, Deep Fried attacked the audience with a set of slamming originals including "Stone Cold Funky" and "Groove Suicide." Over on the Homegrown Stage, the Latin jazz and jamming jaunts of The Motet were unfolding. Featuring a new sax player and keyboardist, they unleashed their unique world music approach to funk, adding in flavors of Afrobeat and Cuban rhythms in between intense outbursts of instrumental fury.
David Via & Corn Tornado welcomed original New Grass Revival dobro player Curtis Burch to the stage for a set of boisterous bluegrass and down-home dig-ins, while the Steve Kimock Band was setting up on the Shed Stage. Tearing through a set which included "Dr. Zaius," and "Tongue 'n' Groove," Kimock displayed all the guitar heroics and instrumental impossibilities he's become known for.
Steve Kimock :: Smilefest 2004 by Willa Stein |
Umphrey's McGee followed with their second Smilefest set, ripping through another show which included their take on the Doobie Brothers' timeless "Black Water." Perhaps no other band made as many new converts at Smilefest as Umphrey's McGee, laying waste to the tattered brains of even those festivalgoers who thought they didn't like psychotic super-speed quasi-metal improv chaos. But when a friend who listens mainly to mellow jazz and bluegrass comes away raving about Umphrey's all-out blitzkrieg invasion, you know they're doing something right.
The Larry Keel Project is the name for an ongoing series of endeavors by the phenomenal bluegrass guitarist. For his Smilefest superset, he enlisted the talents of his wife Jenny Keel on upright bass, Curtis Burch on dobro, Mike Marshall on mandolin and Darol Anger on fiddle. They roared through a relentless set of ravenous bluegrass, including songs such as "Ride the Wild Turkey," and "Gator Strut," offering no mercy to the strings of their instruments.
Derek Trucks :: Smilefest 2004
By Gabriel Nelson |
The Derek Trucks Band was up next on the Shed Stage, and they especially dazzled fans who hadn't seen Trucks since his childhood days sitting in with the Allman Brothers. Long ago (aka the early '90s), he could most often be seen scratching his way through some barroom blues, but these days you're more likely to see a John Coltrane cover than a 12-bar progression. Keeping true to his reputation for rare and delicious covers, he opened the show with the mouthwatering chord changes and bottomless jam of "Volunteered Slavery" by legendary jazzman Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Former Muddy Waters sideman "Steady Rollin'" Bob Margolin joined on guitar for "44 Blues" and "Feel So Bad," while Johnny Neel pulled up a stool for "Leavin' Trunk." Margolin returned to help close out the set with a celebratory romp through the anthemic "Joyful Noise."
The stretched-out elastic rock romps of Willie & Me led into Delta Moon's bluesy set. Featuring a female vocalist and two slide guitarists, they offered up a great show as the evening grew later and Leftover Salmon prepared to take the stage. Although they're gearing up for a lengthy break from live performances, they featured a new banjo player and held nothing back in their display of breakneck speed and rambunctious energy. As one friend put it toward the end of their set, "If Leftover had distortion pedals, they'd be a death-metal band."
Friday night was almost over, but there was still one long late night set to go. Barefoot Manner set up their gear on the Homegrown Stage, and dug in for a moonlight party of uncommon flavor. Joined once again by Myron Koch on saxophone, their set featured originals such as "Barefoot Blues" alongside covers including Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor." The Grateful Dead's "China Cat Sunflower" > "I Know You Rider" included Tanya Shylock from Mountain of Venus on vocals. As a giant crowd of smiling dancers pirouetted in the moonlight, it was easy to see where the festival organizers got their inspiration. Throwing a party this fun can be addictive, and there's still one more day of music left to go.
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