Getting Back To The Pines: Paul Hoffman Talks Greensky Bluegrass’ Blue Ox Music Festival Return

Greensky Bluegrass was on the lineup of the inaugural Blue Ox Music Festival when it launched in Eau Claire, Wisconsin in 2015. Greensky returned to The Pines Music Park for subsequent Blue Ox fests in 2016, 2017 and 2018, but has not been back since.

That will change next month when Greensky Bluegrass headlines Blue Ox 2025, which will be held June 26 – 28. GSBG, whose 25th anniversary is this year, is slated to take the main stage on Friday, June 27 after performances by Molly Tuttle, Charlie Parr, St. Paul and The Broken Bones and Big Richard.

Co-hosts Pert Near Sandstone will play two nights at Blue Ox. Other acts set to perform at this year’s festival include Sam Bush Band, Amigo the Devil, Rising Appalachia, Peter Rowan with Sam Grisman Project, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Chaparelle, Horseshoes and Hand Grenades, Mountain Grass Unit, The Last Revel and more.

More than 40 artists will perform across the event’s three stages. Blue Ox is a family-friendly festival with activities presented at the Family Stage during the day, featuring a variety of crafts and entertainment. Blue Ox 2025 passes are approximately 85% sold-out. Ticket prices for the 5,000 capacity event increase starting on Thursday, May 8 at 12:01 a.m. CT. Purchase 2025 Blue Ox Music Festival tickets.

Ahead of the band’s much-anticipated Blue Ox return, Greensky Bluegrass mandolinist Paul Hoffman spoke to JamBase about what it means to be joining Pert Near Sandstone back at The Pines this summer.

“I’m excited to see them again,” Hoffman said about reconnecting with Pert Near Sandstone. “It’s been a long time, maybe since we were there [in 2018].”

Raised in Michigan, though many Blue Ox attendees will be glad to know he’s a proud Green Bay Packers fan, Hoffman is well versed in the region, having grown up “in the Midwest right across the lake.”

He recalled Blue Ox organizers’ quick response to a rain storm when asked about memories from playing the first fest.

“I grew up in that environment too,” Hoffman explained. “It could be hot as hell or it could be some torrential thunderstorm and people show up for all of it. They’re there for it, it’s cool.”

The physical environment is not the only component affecting the atmosphere at a festival. Those who show up to see the musicians and participate in the various activities make just as much of an impact.

“The easy answer is: the place is defined by the people to some extent,” Hoffman said. “We’ve been playing music in America for a long time. This is our 25th year as a band. I can tell there’s people that’ll be there that are from that region that come to see us in that region or close to there – I mean people travel from all over to see us as well – but different people have different energies.”

Different aged people have different energies too, and Blue Ox goes a long way to create a family-friendly space for all attendees. For Hoffman, whose young daughter has attended several festivals like Renewal in Colorado, the welcomeness afforded to all Blue Ox festivalgoers, regardless of age, resonates.

“My daughter’s been to a bunch of festivals and we go to some just for fun,” Hoffman said. “When I haven’t even been playing on the bill, just going over to hang. It’s fun being at festivals with kids so they can see music in the day and run around and be kind of wild.”

Hanging with other musicians at festivals is one of the added bonuses of playing the festival circuit. The Blue Ox 2025 lineup includes many returning performers alongside newcomers. For both Hoffman and festivalgoers, Blue Ox will offer a chance to see familiar faces and get introduced to new performers as well.

“When you get to a festival … people are already having fun and a band’s already playing when we pull up usually, or we get there first thing in the morning before people are in there and that’s a cool energy too,” Hoffman explained. “Backstage is surrounded by energy. There’s a bunch of other musicians and if we know them, it’s like a moving family reunion all year, because we tend to get booked with the same kinds of bands. So we have this community, that’s not necessarily all bluegrass bands, that gets to chill backstage.”

Hoffman also likes to take the opportunity at festivals Greensky Bluegrass plays to check out other artists on the lineup.

“I do love to go see bands at festivals, I’ve seen so many bands because of that,” Hoffman said. “I wanna go see and support the bands I know a lot, but then I also just want to check out stuff I’ve never seen before. It’s easy in the festival world, which is changing, in general, the dynamic of festivals and saturation versus over saturation, but people tend to be excited about festival bills where it’s a bunch of bands they love and stuff like that. But the sort of overlooked awesome part of a festival is all the bands you haven’t heard of before that you get to discover there.”

Frequent Blue Ox performer Charlie Parr will be back at The Pines playing the same day as GSBG, as is prior GSBG collaborator Molly Tuttle. Hoffman identified Parr as one of the other performers he was less familiar with.

Sharing the bluegrass vernacular can help facilitate collaborations with fellow pickers like Tuttle. Parr’s Piedmont blues-styled singer-songwriter approach presents a different challenge and tack to a would-be sit-in. Hoffman walked through how a hypothetical collab with Parr at Blue Ox might go down.

“I don’t know a lot about [Parr] at all, but he’s a singer, right?” Hoffman began. “So we probably would try and find a song for him to sing, maybe something for him to sing together, and then float it, see if it works … Then the boring part is, will it work? Can they come up for soundcheck? Is there time to rehearse backstage? The logistics of it all.”

The hard work that goes into putting on Blue Ox between promoters, vendors, festival staff and the musicians and their teams helped foster a decade of successful events. The fest brings together people for a shared experience rooted in authentic music.

For Hoffman, the shared experience and building of community are what stand out the most.

“All these relationships we keep talking about, that’s what makes the festival special,” Hoffman said. “Music is unifying. I always take pride in the fact that in the trying political times like we have now, that our music can be a place where people who don’t have other things in common can unite. And a festival does that tenfold because you’ve got all these different bands and all their fan bases and all their friends and bands from all different parts of the country bring people in from all over. That unity is a cool thing. We need it in the world today.”

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[Sponsored article: Blue Ox is a JamBase partner.]