BLUEGRASS / ACOUSTIC ANNUAL MUSIC FESTIVAL
This is the FIFTH year of this event at
PINE MOUNTAIN AMPHITHEATER
FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA
17 – 18 -19 SEPTEMBER 2010
Saturday, 18 September 2010:
THIS IS OUR THIRD YEAR TO VOLUNTEER AT THIS EVENT. We started working with the first production. We missed working the last two years. Once because of my youngest’s wedding, the next, due to a river trip schedule. We’re back!
The last time we volunteered, the second year of the production, among the many great performances, the marvelous KRUGER BROTHERS were our ‘discovery of the year’! They had just written a composition and were positioned to appear with 80 symphonies that year! We were blown away by their surprising presentation, their depth and virtuousity! This April, 2011, they will be here with the Flagstaff Symphony. We plan to be there.
Tonight, there is a great CONTRA DANCE at the Ashurst Auditorium, Old Main, on the NAU campus in Flag. When I was in southern New Mexico, I went to the Contra Dances @ the Old Mesilla Community Center. It was the sort of thing where you could go alone, with family, or with a friend. No need to draggle along your own partner.
Area musicians would get together earlier in the week to jam/practice, and then perform – one Saturday a month. I used to joke that it was the only place in town where you could go and everyone there would have a silly smile on his/her face! That, of course, was due to two things: the variety of mistakes possible . . . AND . . . everyone was having a great time.
Today and tomorrow, we continue our volunteer stint out at the Amphitheater. It’s a great place to see a lot of happy people and dancing children. According to Curt, who worked the campground yesterday afternoon, the campgrounds are full. Some family groups came in in plural vehicles. Sort of mini-reunions going on.
Y’all come! Enokidancer
It’s Tuesday, September 21. PICKIN’ in the PINES 5th Annual FESTIVAL was a great success. The crowd was huge, but all relaxed and happy, filling the concert seats under the amphitheater canopy, and good-humored folk and free-spirited children spread like the Rubiyat’s gathering, “star-scattered on the grass.”
The entertainment included performances by the Burnett Family Bluegrass, Seldom Scene, Audie Blaylock and Redline, Muskelunge Bluegrass, Freighthoppers, Great Bear Trio, Dixie Beeliners, John Reischman and the Jaybirds, Town Mountain, Providence, Titan Valley Warheads, the Knockabouts, the Jeff and Vida Band, Andrew and Noah Van Norstrand, Tony Norris and Friends, and the Flagstaff Festival Singers. The ambience of the whole festival seemed light-hearted and joyful. A lot of toe-tapping, smiles, pleasant nods, and unspoken communication. The weather was terrific, with those deep-blue North Country skies you often get up here @ 7,000 feet above sea level.
Curt said, “While the Burnett family was playing, one old-timer asked me if I was from Flagstaff. When I said yes, he said, ‘ They sure make great ambassadors for your town.’ And they do.”
Saturday and Sunday evening & afternoon, I volunteered in the Festival T-Shirt booth. I worked with Sylvia and Debbie, from Mesa and Tucson, respectively. Susan Billingsley was the organizer. I went early for my first shift and got to train on the satellite credit card reader, complete with tiny printer. This little electronic wonder was loaned or rented to the PIP organization by National Bank of Arizona, one of the major sponsors of the Festival. My joke was, we just turned our eyes to the sky and asked if this person really wanted to buy a T-shirt. And the sky invariably said yes. How easy it made our tasks!
It got a lot of use during the afternoons when I was there. I guessed that over half the sales of CDs and other items, including shirts, were purchased through use of credit cards.
I can’t say enough for the organization of the event. Everything moved so smoothly. Big Blue Sound professionally took care of the musician’s performance needs. Native Plant and Seed graced the stage background with living, potted trees and shrubs. I had the distinct feeling that the trees were absorbing the joy inherent in the music and in the appreciation of the audience.
People were there from all over, even a few who said that they had just seen the sign on the highway, and followed it in. People were congratulating themselves for coming.
When we came home, I immediately got tickets for the Flagstaff Symphony / Kruger Brothers performance, slated for April 8, 2011. They are also doing a concert for Flagstaff Friends of Traditional Music while they are here. Henry Kaldenburgh, with whom Curt was working Friday night, said that the Krugers love Flagstaff so well, that they will just jump in the car and drive here @ the least provocation. If our early experience among the folk drinking in their exquisite performance at the 2007 Picking in the Pines is indicative of Flagstaff’s regard for the Krugers, Flagstaff loves the Krugers back!
Pickin’ in the Pines is one of very few such festivals put on by a non-profit organization. Volunteer labor (one might read “love”) makes the Festival go ’round.
If you’ve not been yet, you’ll probably want to make it out to the loveliest venue in the West next fall!
Y’all come! Smiles.
Enokidancer
www.pickininthepines.org/
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