Advertisement
Published: August 31st 2009
Day 10 - Saturday
7am - Uncle Howard and I made an early start to reach the Columbia Gorge Bluegrass Festival down near the border of Washington and Oregan. Basically head south and turn East just before you hit Portland. It was a smooth drive and very pretty as we headed inland through the Columbia Gorge, passing the Bonneville Dam along the way.
We arrived at our Motel about 10am and went straight to the festival grounds after that, which were about 2 minutes drive away. This was my first bluegrass festival in the USA! It was as I expected, a large field full of tents, caravans and RV's. The main stage was held in a large open air barn type thing which was good to let the air through during the hot day. It would be a couple of hours before the bands started, so we walked around to the various workshops the artists were holding.
The atmosphere was very relaxed in the gorgeous setting. After the workshops we watched a small competition of bluegrass instruments. They were mainly kids, but they were great on their respective instruments, especially the fiddle.
Some highlights:
Got to see
On the Road
Mostly freeway driving guitar legend David Grier at his workshop as well as his performance on stage with Mike Compton
Prairie Flyer - Hadn't heard of them before, but they were a great band and really nice fellas
The Quebe Sisters - These were 3 sisters from Texas and had amazing voices and all played fiddles amazingly.
Infamous Stringdusters - I had heard of them before, so was great to hear them live. They were a mix of traditional and progressive bluegrass. They had a great groove and stage presence.
I think Uncle Howard enjoyed the music as well and I think I may have "converted" him to Bluegrass.
We went to the local Pizza joint for dinner before catching the headline acts in the evening. The crowd was really getting into it in the end and a lot people were dancing in the sidelines.
The Infamous Stringdusters put on a great show, getting David Grier and Mike Compton up on stage for an all-star jam at the end.
We made our way back to the Motel at the end of a long but very enjoyable day. We slept well that night!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.06s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0329s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
