The Bourbon and Beyond Festival has become a big event in Louisville in the early Fall of each year. Last year the headlines were the likes of Stevie Nicks and the Steve Miller Band. And last year it was hot as Hades too, so you were sweating to the oldies. This year could not have been more different— it rained most of the day, sometimes very heavily. So… I finally got to have my own Mudstock (i.e. Woodstock) experience quite by accident. Now you have to be a real music lover to sit all day in a beach chair with a rain parka on listening to live music. And of course there were other things to do… like go see the celebrity chefs, or check out the Music Experience pavilion (where I got to play a gorgeous 2,500 dollar acoustic Martin guitar for a bit), or eat food, or sample a bunch of different kinds of Kentucky bourbons (didn’t do that). But I’m here to tell you that from noon until 10.30 at night, despite the rain, that was the best and most diverse one day of music I’ve ever experienced. It was supposed to be a two day festival with Sting and Blackberry Smoke and Counting Crows headlining Sunday, but the field had become a swamp and a mud pit and was sucking the shoes right off of people, who were falling around, and breaking chairs (including one of mine). We definitely had the better over all and more diverse line-up on Saturday— Swimming with Bears, Joseph, Larkin Poe, Brian Setzer, J.J. Grey and Mofro, Keb Mo, Sheryl Crowe, David Byrne, Lenny Kravitz, Mindy Abair and the Boneshakers, and finally the teenage heartthrob—- John Mayer. And it was all excellent! More in the next post….
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