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![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/fuggles.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHoo boy, long post ahead...<\/p>\n
After a long night of huddling around the fire and then shivering in our tents, we worked our way back to the music around noon-ish. But first, some people-watching, while listening to Jerry Douglas's set in the distance:
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...![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/landwhale.jpg\")
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And some bird-watching:![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/screechowls.jpg\")
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That's a pair of rescued screech-owls.<\/p>\n
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Off to the music... First up, Jimmy LaFave on the \"cabin stage\" (a little cabin right next to the main stage):![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/jimmy_lafave.jpg\")
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He was pretty good - electric country\/blues. Never heard of him before.<\/p>\n
Then, on the main stage, Hot Tuna.![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/hot_tuna1.jpg\")
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...![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/hot_tuna2.jpg\")
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They stayed seated for their set of Dixieland-flavored blues. We didn't. We got some food. But, we were right next to the main stage, so we could hear them just fine. Then, we wandered over to watch a bit of Guy Clark and Verlon Thompson, who I, unfortunately, don't remember anything about.<\/p>\n
One nice thing about Merlefest, many of the musicians do autograph sessions after their sets. So, we got Jerry Douglas to sign our ticket stubs. Cool.<\/p>\n
Finally, the show we'd been waiting for: Gillian Welch and David Rawlings.![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/gillian.jpg\")
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...![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/davidrawlings.jpg\")
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Those two pictures were taken during their sound-check. Apparently they always do their own sound checks. That was good, since it meant I didn't have to get up and walk up to get pictures during their actual set.... which was fantastic, of course. Emmylou Harris joined them on \"Orphan Girl\" and \"Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby\" (from \"Oh Brother! Where Art Thou?\"). I thought she looked like Penny Marshall<\/a>.<\/p>\n![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/gillian_emmylou.jpg\")
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Nikon D100, 75-250mm<\/div>\nNikon D100, 28-80mm<\/div>\n
A great set. Gillian's and David Rawlings' voices are so perfectly matched, she's such a great songwriter, and he's such a fantastic accompanist, that everything they play is essentially perfect. <\/p>\n
After their set, we found out that they were doing autographs, too. So we got them to sign the other sides of our ticket stubs.![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/autographs.jpg\")
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But, even better, my wife got a picture with the two of them:![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/david_dawn_gillian.jpg\")
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An aside: <\/p>\n
\nLast year, Gillian and David did a record with another of my favorites, Robyn Hitchcock. And, last year<\/a>, I managed to get Robyn to autograph a concert poster from the tour he did in support of that album. So, my wife suggested that I bring that poster along to Merlefest to maybe get Gillian's and David's autographs on it (if they were doing autographs). I decided I didn't want to risk bringing that poster along camping for four days, carrying it around in questionable weather, on the off-chance I could catch them giving autographs. So, I left it home. She was right when she said I'd regret that decision.<\/ul>\nNikon D100, 75-250mm<\/div>\nNikon D100, 75-250mm<\/div>\n
Anyway, they were very nice, and didn't once scowl at the line of a hundred people waiting to get their autographs. And that capped-off a great afternoon for us. So, back to the campsite for dinner and some refueling. Then back to the music!<\/p>\n
Rory Block:![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/rory_block.jpg\")
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Sam Bush:![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/sam_bush.jpg\")
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I'm not a big fan of the bluegrass-jazz-classical-fusion thing. So, this set was just meh<\/i> for me. Plus, as my wife can attest, it was cold out:![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/colddawn.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSony P7<\/div>\nNikon D100, 75-250mm<\/div>\nSony P7<\/div>\n
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Then, finally, Robert Earl Keen:![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/robert_earl_keen.jpg\")
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He was more interesting than Sam Bush, so I could almost tolerate the fact that I was chilled to the bone. <\/p>\n
So, back to the campsite, at about 11:30pm, to get warm enough to get our bluegrass party started.![](\"\/images\/merlefest_06\/fire.jpg\")
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One of the guys we went with is a guitar player and singer. So, he started playing with one guy he knew, then more people from other campsites joined in, and pretty soon, there was another concert. At one point, one of the guys from the campsite next to us showed up, completely drunk (at least), with a drum. He tried to play along, but couldn't get it together - so he just stunpled around and amused the rest of us with his philsophical observations. Then someone else showed up who said he had an original he wanted to sing - told the guitar players to give him a \"steady G\". His song was called \"Fuck That Shit\", and the chorus went \"Fuck That Shit \/ Fuck That Shit \/ Fuck That Buncha Bullshit\" - catchy! I think he improvised the verses, which were all about things that he didn't like, and he did a tolerable job of it, too. The whole thing was so absurd that we all ended up singing that song for the next two days. I got the song on audio with my little Sony P7. I suppose it's the kind of thing you had to be there to appreciate - but I was, so I do.<\/p>\n
At four AM, we had to chase the other musicians out of our campsite so we could get some sleep.<\/p>\n
More to come...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hoo boy, long post ahead... After a long night of huddling around the fire and then shivering in our tents, we worked our way back to the music around noon-ish. But first, some people-watching, while listening to Jerry Douglas's set in the distance: Nikon D100, 18-35mm ... Nikon D100, 18-35mm And some bird-watching: Nikon D100, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-merlefest-06","category-shows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ok-cleek.com\/blogs\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}