My Adventures in Festival Life
Days One and Two of Bourbon & Beyond were highly organized and very strict when it came to the front gates. The event was constantly posting on their socials and emailing out rules and regulations for standards that they wanted upheld throughout the long weekend. You could only bring in chairs if you had a “Chair Pass”, which cost gobs of extra money, and they sold out in 45 minutes. You could bring in a towel to sit on if your towel met specific requirements as far as size and, get this, thickness. Water bottles had to be clear, and empty upon arrival, and not have a capacity of over 20ozs. There were also lists of “Do’s and “Don’ts” that festival runners hammered into your brain repeatedly. Then came day three.
You could have shown up in a suit of armor and riding an elephant that was strapped with a bandoleer of cocaine, and no one would have even glanced over at you. People had either pushed the rules to change or the festival stopped regulating so hard, because all bets were of going forward. Day one I had brought a clear backpack and followed the guidelines to a tee. My bag was inspected, partway emptied and my towel was even unrolled to see if I had smuggled anything inside. I had to empty my pockets as I went through the metal detector and then I was swiped with the wand as an extra measure of security.
Day Two I ditched the backpack as it seemed like too much and I never sat anyway. I left the water bottle behind as well, because you could just refill an existing bottle that you initially purchased of ice-cold water. I was less burdened to be sure. Day Three I noticed much larger towels, blankets and even inflatables from the “Don’t List”. Twenty-ounce water bottles turned into 60oz jugs. Airplane bottles of liquor were scattered in the trash receptacles as people had muled them in. And that cloud cover that was well noticed, was not cumulus, it was man made. The crowds seemed to triple on this Saturday version of the concert event and the temp tickled 100 degrees. All bets were off, and we were in festival mode, the way festival mode should run. Anarchy just checked in, and I was here for it.
The music was for us, and we wanted to be comfortable. So, let’s get into Day Three’s playlist. I had just missed Royel Otis as I arrived because I had not properly done my due diligence in researching other events in the area. Louisville Football was playing at the stadium right next to the venue. Instead of taking about 25 minutes to arrive at Bourbon & Beyond from my Indiana based hotel, it took me almost 2 hours and I ended up parked 1.2 miles away, so I added a twenty-minute walk to my journey as well.
However, I did get to catch my guy, Robert Finley. Robert is a soul and blues man from Louisianna that I saw once before in Nashville opening for The Black Keys. He also joined the duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney on stage to close the show as well at Brooklyn Bowl. Finley is a wonderful performer with songs based in heartache and hard living. He had the crowd swinging and grooving along with him as his voice told the tales of that damn woman that he couldn’t shake. He is both lanky and graceful with an infectious smile that radiates beneath his trademark often black ridge-top hat (today it was white). At age 70, he has no plans to slow down.
I caught the beginning of Sierra Ferrell next. I only stuck around for a few songs, because I had a date with Son Volt on the opposite side of the vastly expansive festival, but I had to see what all her hype was about. I can tell you this- she is legit. I really enjoyed what I was able to see and hear. Her voice is Kate Bush-like in that it’s not “normal”, yet eclectically beautiful. She was like this mystical forest fairy on stage as she was shrouded in flowers and her sound rips you into a fantastically foreign land. I can’t wait to see more, but I had to go.
Son Volt is one of those bands that I have listened to for years and was excited to see live for the first time. I want to describe them as alternative country, because I think that sounds fair. Whatever, you want to label it, it’s just good music. I was kind of shocked that they had been sent to play on the auxiliary stage and not on one of the two main stages, but they were playing at the same time as Sierra Ferrell and she is the big draw right now. The good news about this festival was that most bands had shorter set times than what they would normally play for a full concert setting, so you got all the top plays from established acts. Son Volt also closed their performance with a cover of Tom Petty’s “The Waiting”. It sealed my sentiment as I had waited a long time to see this 1990’s formed band. I won’t wait so long next time.
One more nineties band on my checklist for the day was Soul Asylum. I found myself in a sea of humans at this point in the day. The crowd was easily over 75,000 for the day. Moving throughout the Expo Center grounds was becoming increasingly more difficult, but I am not complaining. I knew what I was signing up for. Restroom lines never grew but the hordes to get to the designated areas did. The same was true for the FREE WATER stations. You didn’t have to wait long to get your water, but getting from one side of the space over to the waterspouts took about four times as long. The heat was beating down on us and I personally couldn’t wait for sunset.
Soul Asylum was a real fun band. Dave Pirner even started with a joke. As he grabbed the microphone he said, “Two antennae meet on a roof. They eventually fall in love and get married. The wedding wasn’t that great, but the reception was incredible”. Then it was a best of album and felt like I was teenager again. Let’s be honest, mentally, I always feel like that. Physically? Well, this day was testing me.
I’ve been writing about the highlights. As I moved from one stage to another or awaited one band to start, I often caught the end of another band. Or as I caught a gap between groups and/or artists that I wanted to see I enjoyed one that wasn’t necessarily on my radar. At this point in my story, I’ll have to guess that I had seen at least 30 shows and logged 25 plus hours of festival time. I’m pretty sure I qualify for health benefits.
The sun was now going into hiding and Teddy Swims was my next hit. My fellow Rock Oracle writer, Steve Lynch, saw him this summer at Lollapalooza in Chicago and was emphatic about how good the performance was. I couldn’t agree more. That saying of “you can’t judge a book by its cover”, should be tattooed on Teddy somewhere if there is any space left. The no 32-year-old powerhouse vocalist, whose real name is Jaten Dimsdale, has been shattering the notion of genres since he stepped on the scene in 2019. His moniker is an acronym for “Someone Who Isn’t Me Sometimes” (SWIMS) and he sees songwriting as a form of therapy. He is a blend of pop, soul, country, R & B and more. His voice hugs you when he sings, and I really needed that hug.
Zac Bryan, Zac Bryan, Zac Bryan is all I have been hearing for the last year. I was in the mode to just see him to get it out of the way. Another long day and I was thinking I’ll catch a few songs up front, leave early, beat the traffic and then I could say that I saw him live. Nope, after the first song I stayed for all the songs and even though getting back to my car and getting back to the Travelodge took an extra hour or two it was certainly worth it. The amount of people was overwhelming as I slipped further away from the stage and found myself in the back of the standing only section, yet it looked like another 50,000 folks were behind me in chair/blanket section. I get it now. Zac Bryan.
Day Four brought the rain and we thanked the Rock Gods for their gift. The crowd also seemed thinner because of the weather and the once battered crowd that I noticed the day before were rejuvenated by the falling water. You could see the people that had just come for Sunday because they seemed daunted by our situation, but those who had been there for the entire event danced in the puddles and took solace in the dark clouds.
My go-to’s were as follows: Madi Diaz, Tommy Prine, The Bacon Brothers, The Beach Boys, Dinosaur Jr, Larkin Poe, Sunny Day Real Estate, The War on Drugs, The National, My Morning Jacket and Tyler Childress.
I’m not going to write about all those bands. I think I’ll lose you. Maybe I already have. I saw them all. I loved them all as the serenaded us in the rain. I loved this festival and all the incredible people that I met. I saw My Morning Jacket live and they were as brilliant and ethereal as everyone says. They played a near 2 hour set which I have heard is way shorter than their normal concert plays that tend to reach over three hours in length.
The Beach Boys were probably the most fun. There wasn’t person young or old that didn’t sing along with Mike Love and the newer members of the famed surf rock group. Mikes son, Christian, performed ‘God Only Knows’ from the infamous Pet Sounds album with tear-jerking percision.
Kevin Bacon and his brother Mike are real musicians. “Anybody got a tattoo? Anyone have a tattoo they regret? You might not want to admit it depending on who you’re standing next to,” Kevin Bacon said to the crowd on Sunday. “This is a song about regrettable tattoos,” he added before launching into “Take Off This Tattoo.”
Madi Diaz and Tommy Prine showed me the future of folk music with a love and passion in their music and words. Larkin Poe was my favorite “new” takeaway, and I will be tuning in to everything they are doing. I used to like The War on Drugs, now I am in love. Their stage show was beyond anything else I saw that day, besides My Morning Jacket. Sunny Day Real Estate and The National didn’t sound their best but it wasn’t bad by any means, and then Tyler.
The audiences reaction functioned as proof of his fame, as they also became a backing choir, singing every single song along with their hometown hero. At one point Childers excitedly admitted that playing Bourbon & Beyond was “everything I expected,” while drinking a clear liquid from a mason jar. The man they call, “The Pride of Lawrence County”, Tyler Childers and band gave a riveting two-hour, 22 song performance to the packed crowd that included songs pulled from almost his entire career. Hits “All Your’n”, “Whitehouse Road”, “House Fire”, “Lady May” (which was done solo acoustic by Childers), and “In Your Love” all present in the set, but Childers closed out with the rather deep cut “Heart You’ve Been Tendin’”. All in all, a great and memorable set by Childers and band to close out the festival.
I had paid for parking on the fourth day and only had to walk a half mile to my car. I am not sure how many more of these long festivals I have left in me, but I am glad I got my ass to this one. Overall, a fantastic event. I’m sure the internet says otherwise as naysayers and virtual trolls need to bitch about every little thing. It was a huge event put on with great success in my opinion. Kudos to everyone involved. I loved it. Be kind.
*According to a press release after the festival, more than 210,000 (shy of intial reports) people packed into the Highland Festival Grounds to see the sights, sounds, and to consume copious amounts of bourbon. 60,000 people showed up on Saturday alone when Zach Bryan headlined the evening. That shatter’s last year’s attendance of 120,000 people, and officially makes it the largest music festival in Kentucky history.
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