Another year, another first night at Merlefest:

First up, for us, Blue Highway:

Then, a band from Australia, The Waifs:

They were the first bluegrassy band we've ever seen where the singers do doo-wop finger snapping.

Then, country music fixture Marty Stuart & his Fabulous Superlatives:

I thought they were good, though some of the rest of our group did not. He was very professional, you can tell he's been doing this for a while. They did a mixture of old-school country, rockabilly and bluegrass.

Then, the final act of the night, Old Crow Medicine Show:

... joined eventually by Marty Stuart for a couple of songs...

They were good - high-energy, young, raucous, a very different attitude from most of the acts at the festival. We heard three mentions of "cocaine" in their lyrics, in the first five songs; and that's without playing "Cocaine Habit Blues" (a.k.a. "Take A Whiff On Me"), which they do on their Big Iron World record (on which Gillian Welch plays drums and which was produced by David Rawlings (Gillian Welch's partner)).

Then Friday came. The mimosas started at 10AM, followed by endless Coors Lights. So, I missed all the daytime bands. By nightfall, the best I could manage was sitting by the fire, taking pictures like this:

... I have dozens of these.

So, no bands on Friday.

On Saturday, we got ourselves together enough to head over for the afternoon shows - I wanted to catch Tift Merritt, who was doing a couple of indoor shows. But, as soon as we got off the shuttle bus from the campsite to the festival grounds, a strong thunderstorm came up and trapped us in the ticket-taker tent. A band called Scythian, who was playing outside the entrance until the rain started, moved into the tent and did a short set for the people trapped in there. They were good, though I could barely hear them because the noise of the rain beating on the giant plastic tent was deafening. By the time the rain let up enough for us to move into the open air, we were cold, wet and defeated. So, after a quick trip to the hot apple pie vendor, we headed back to the campsite.

We did listen to a lot of the bands on the local radio station, which broadcasts the show live. So, we got to hear it, at least. And after hearing them, there are a few bands I wish I would've seen: Ricky Scaggs & Bruce Hornsby, The Waybacks (who played all of Zeppelin II), Levon Helm, etc.. Alas, the folding camp chairs proved too comfortable. So, for me and Mrs Cleek, it was a pretty meager Merlefest, as far as music goes. The camping part was fun, of course.

Sunday we packed it up and headed home.