Photo: Tim Bugbee
The most prestigious folk festival in the US took place this weekend, with the Newport Folk Festival taking places in Newport, Rhode Island. The sell out audience were treated to three days of folk music in a myriad of forms.
The resurgence of the festival is in no small part due to producer Jay Sweet, whose curatorial vision has expanded the palette of musical acts far beyond the acoustic guitar and harmonica styling of its roots.
A steady rain couldn't dampen the spirits of Friday's crowd, who got revved up via the erudite folk execution of death metal fan John Darnielle and his band The Mountain Goats - this clearly isn't your father's folk festival. Feist played to a sea of ponchos and umbrellas, but the rain tapered off for Old Crow Medicine Show's retro bluegrass energy and the rest of the weekend was dry and warm.
There were many acts of note among the fifty-plus that graced the stages, tents and impromptu recording studios scattered around the grounds of Fort Adams but it's safe to say that The Avett Brothers delivered what the crowd wanted to hear.
Bombino, Frank Turner and Michael Kiwanuka walked away with legions of new fans, Beck is still a droll slacker, and there's a good chance that a future headliner could have been playing at the small "Nashville To Newport" collection of musicians curated by Joe Fletcher that were shoehorned into the museum space.
