The first chapter of a four day festival in Louisville, KY
Here I am, in my hotel room, just north of Louisville, Kentucky in Sellersberg, Indiana pondering what I have seen over the last two days. It’s Bourbon & Beyond and it’s a lot. According to local news sources and the Bourbon & Beyond website the festival is bringing in $12.5 million dollars in local revenue and over 270,000 concert goers over the four days of music. The venue, which is located at The Highland Fairgrounds at the Kentucky Exposition Center, between the airport and the University of Louisville, is a massive lot of land as you would imagine. The festival started in 2017 and has grown immensely since its inception. This year hosts 110 bands/artists and 5 different stages located across the property.
So where do I start? I think it will be with the complaints, not mine, but what I have been reading online. Those include, “It’s too hot”, “Not enough water”, “Not enough shaded areas”, “Too many people”, “Parking sucks” and so on and so forth. My rebuttal is that it is an outdoor music festival. Imagine if YELP existed at the time of Woodstock. We would have heard, “It’s too muddy”, “It’s dirty”, “Jimi Hendrix was too loud”, “The drugs are meh”. I will say that it has been extremely hot, but I feel like the FREE water station that they offered on day one was great. On day two they recognized they need more and brought in a second water area. They also have misting fans and misting stations located throughout. Food is plentiful and yes, it’s expensive, but again, when you sign up for a festival situation you should know about the high prices of everything.
The parking isn’t great, but I found a work around. Do not park at the grounds. I parked about a mile away at The Cracker Barrel and walked in. Got my steps in and saved $40 plus the hassle of battling thousands to get out of the lot at the end of the night. You could also ride share, however the prices to and from doubled that of a parking space- and as I left Thursday night, I saw the horror of about 10,000 folks waiting for their driver to arrive. The walk was worth it, plus I ate at Cracker Barrel before heading into the festival and paying those massive food prices.
I find the best way to navigate a large festival like this one is to create a roadmap to your must-see acts. With multiple stages and an impossibility to see everyone I wrote down a list of 5-7 artists that I needed to see while I was here. Those artists for this event were The Wallflowers, Fleet Foxes, Suzanne Vega, Matchbox 20, Beck and Sting. Plus, I had time gaps in between the acts, and as I crossed the palatial grounds, from one stage to the next I could grab a look at someone I had never seen or even heard of before. Another tip is to take a lap around the site and figure out exactly where everything you need is located. A map is cool, but until I see it for myself a map can be confusing.
The Wallflowers were the going to be the start for me, but I ended up catching Lyle Lovett before them. Two stages were set next to each other in two locations, and a fifth stage resided inside the Jack Daniels tent for a small setting venue. Where I was to kick off things was at the Oak Stage. This is where Lyle Lovett was playing as the crew were setting up the Barrel stage next door for The Wallflowers. The brilliance of this was you could watch one act finish up a set as you found a spot for the next in the same area. Six monster TV screens also outlined the stage for viewing as well, but I’ve never understood going to see live music and staring at a screen. Hopefully some pictures in this article will better define the set-up.
Lyle was great as he wooed the audience with precise finger plucking guitar twangs and a great voice. I had never really listened to Mr. Lovett before and I am glad I took time out to visit in on his set. About 5,000 people listened in to this Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame member as he serenaded us in the sun. I swore he was in the Country Music Hall of Fame but alas this 4-time Grammy winner is not in. It was a wonderful way to start my day.
As soon as one show ended the adjacent stage was ready to go with the next. Within minutes of Lyle Lovett’s final note, The Wallflowers were fully breaking into their set. No nonsense and into the music immediately. Frontman Jacob Dylan, son of folk-rock legend Bob Dylan, even acknowledge the tight sets and said, “We know our time is limited, but don’t worry we will play the songs you want to hear.” I am not going to go through all the songs of all the bands, because that would be too much. I’ll give you an overall vibe of the festival and the musicians and I’ll drop set lists at the end of this article.
The Wallflowers did, in fact, drop all their bangers and I was overwhelmed by how good the sounds was. Huge towers of speakers outlined the stages and gave off impeccable sound quality. The other negative thing I had heard was that the Yonder and Beyonder Stages were at the end of a runway at the Louisville Airport. People commented on social media to those attending, “Good luck with all those airplanes ruining the music”. The planes were certainly present, but it’s not like we were on an aircraft carrier during wartime. I maybe noticed two or three and those were usually between songs or when I was further away from the stage and not locked into the sounds of song. I felt like Jacob is sounding more like his father vocally these days and I didn’t hate it.
The Fleet Foxes was going to be a wash as I realized the ending efforts of The Wallflowers and the proximity of Suzanne Vega was going to clash. I wanted to be right up front for the indie-folk-rocker and so I headed across the lot to find myself leaning against the barricade about 15 minutes before she took the stage. As I stood there in wonderment of how close I was going to be to the woman who I wore down tapes with in high school, I noticed her standing backstage. She was looking over the crowd gathering, and our eyes met. I was at just the right angle to see her in the shadows- stage right, and she noticed me too. Suzanne Vega gave me a big smile and motioned her hands in heart formation. It was to me directly. The fifteen-year-old me screamed inside. Maybe outside? I might have blackout briefly.
The heat was rising as Vega and another guitar player sauntered to center stage. Like, The Wallflowers, she recognized that time was limited. Bands throughout the day were given about 45 minutes, with the larger acts getting over and hour and the main headliners of the evening were allotted around 120 minutes. Vega played ‘Tom’s Diner’ and ‘Luka’ and we all sang alone at the top of our lungs. She was gracious and beautiful and played acoustically next to her electric guitar strapped partner. She is an absolute treasure and announced that she has a new album coming out.
Vega dropped her first new single in 8 years recently. The track is called ‘Rats’, and it arrives just as the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, kicks off his National Urban Rat Summit to strategize dealing with the rodents. Vega & friends had been sharing tales of large rats over the last few years and the artist stated, “I took careful note and set it all to music, inspired by the Ramones and Fontaines D.C.” She talked about this project, but she did not play the track. It’s okay Suzanne, I still love you.
Grabbed some free water and a beer for $18.50 (19.5oz and 9.9%), hit the bathrooms which were well maintained, and there were so many portable stations that there were zero lines and got ready for Matchbox 20 back on the other side of the land mass. Fun fact, I went to High School with frontman Rob Thomas at Lake Brantley in Orlando, Florida, briefly. I say “briefly” as he cut ties with schooling his junior year to pursue his musical career with his band Tabitha’s Secret. That band eventually gained wide success, and we all went to see them around town when we could. My cousin Stacie was obsessed with Rob (had to throw that in).
The sun was finally receding just a bit when Matchbox began their set. I am not sure how Rob has maintained his look all these years later. He is a year or two older than me, yet he looks about a decade younger. Playing all the award-winning songs, Thomas and his mates, kept our souls soaring. He was running around the stage with a youthful vibrance, and joy and the ensemble matched his tone. Some said it was the set of the day as I went back and looked at notes and videos from those who attended. I would have agreed…until I saw Beck.
Beck was going to be extra special for me on a personal note. I carried a photo of my friends Mic and Nichole with me from Nashville to Louisville just to see Beck. Mic and Nichole were two of my earliest friends in Seattle when I lived there. I met them at a brewery called Hilliard’s in the Pacific Northwest’s neighborhood of Ballard. We talked music frequently, drank beer more frequently and watched our dog’s Layla (mine) and Xiola (theirs) slumber at our feet.
When Hilliard’s close and I had gained ownership in my own brewery called Bad Jimmy’s they migrated to me. I was so happy that first Sunday that they strolled in. They said, “We came here because of you”. I started spinning vinyl records on Sunday’s and they would always bring in a stack to drop on the turntable. More talking music, more drinking beer and more love in a relationship full of smiles and laughs. I brought this picture with me because they had seen Beck many times, this was my first, and unfortunately Nichole is no longer of this Earth. She was an angel, with an infectious laugh and caring heart. Now she would be looking down as we finally saw Beck together.
I cried my way through most of the show as Beck dazzled us with hints of soul, funk, disco and electronic rock. He was witty as he engaged with the audience and his voice was steady and smooth as he rolled through the night. I was seemingly alone, although surrounded by thousands, and clutching a photo of two whom will forever remain in my heart.
Wiping away the tears from my eyes and looking up into the sky at a solo star shining down upon me I slowly walked over to see Sting.
How could you not go see Sting? It had been a nine-hour day, but what was one more hour to see the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer (as a member of The Police, but sadly not as a solo artist). Sting was closing out the first day of Bourbon & Beyond over on the Oak Stage. A baseball stadium’s worth of people surrounded the stage for this iconic performer. Sting was…well…Sting. Not old or worn down. Not “going through the motions”, but life inducing Sting. He started with ‘Message in a Bottle’ in a slowed down funk type manor and progressed through a lineup of hits. From his time with Andy Summers and Stuart Copeland of The Police, to his solo stuff, it felt like Sting stuffed a timeline of music into an hour and a half window.
That was it. That was day one. I’m chopping this article in half and will bring you the days individually, rather than all of it at once.
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