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Festival goers at the Four Corners Folk Fest in the Before Times. After a yearlong COVID hiatus, the festival returns to Reservoir Hill in Pagosa Springs over Labor Day./Courtesy photo
Festivating in a brave new world Outdoor music festival season in SWCO returns – to varying degrees by Chris Aaland
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or better or worse, we’re fully in the throes of festival season. The 48th annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival got under way last weekend with a socially distanced, three-day, 2,500-spectator event – just a fourth of capacity for Town Park. It continues today (Thur., June 17) through Sunday. Aside from Sam Bush, this weekend features a new slate of artists and a (mostly) different audience. I’ll be among those in attendance, keeping my 24-year Telluride Bluegrass streak alive; last Saturday, I dropped $34 (the daily fee) for audio and visual through a streaming service called, appropriately enough, Mandolin. Each day is limited to four bands, with the first starting in the 3 o’clock hour and the last ending shortly after 10. That means Thursday with Sierra Hull, Crooked Still, the Jerry Douglas Band and Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange); Friday with Richie & Rosie, the Del McCoury Band, the Decemberists and Yonder Mountain String Band; Saturday with Edgar & George Meyer, Grace Potter, the Sam Bush Band and Leftover Salmon; and Sunday with Mavis Staples, Peter Rowan & Los Texmaniacs, Emmylou Harris and the Telluride House Band (Sam, Edgar, Jerry, Bela, Bryan & Stuart). Yes, there are a handful of workshops and a few Nightgrass shows … even the occasional special guest (who’d have guessed that the Lovell sisters in the blues duo, Larkin Poe, would be joining Sam Bush for his encore last Saturday?) Two-hundred-fifty 10-person corrals make up the festi-
Grace Potter plays Telluride’s Town Park stage Saturday for the 48th Telluride Bluegrass festival./Courtesy photo val grounds this year, nearly all of them in front of or parallel with the sound booth. Each corral is distanced from the next. You get the same corral for each day of the weekend, the same group of friends sitting next to you. Everyone is required to purchase tickets, which is why my wife, Shelly,
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chooses to stay home with our brood. $400 per child seemed a bit steep – especially since 7-year-old Rosie has the attention span of, well, a 7-year-old. At 14, Otto is simply too cool to hang with Mom & Dad. Proof of vaccination is strongly suggested, although word on the street has it that nobody was checking. Still, if you plan to attend, bring your card. If you’re not vaccinated, consider whether or not it’s responsible to be in a large crowd. If you think your freedoms trump my health, perhaps you should just stay at home as those of us who are vaccinated don’t want your cooties. Consider heading up to Country Jam in Grand Junction the following weekend with Lauren Boebert and the rest of the flag-waving, gun-toting, red-hat crowd. It was a combination of Telluride Town Council and Planet Bluegrass that enacted festival restrictions this year. When planning was under way in March and April, the pandemic was still raging. San Miguel County, with its limited medical resources, was understandably cautious. Remember the Spanish Flu of 1918? No town in the U.S. was harder hit per capita than Silverton, just over the hill from Telluride. A walk through of Lone Tree Cemetery in Telluride reveals a rather high number of graves associated with that pandemic. Had Planet Bluegrass and Telluride Town Council waited until May to make their decisions, the restrictions likely would have been less severe. But promoters can’t wait until the last minute to book their lineups, coordinate staff and volunteers, and otherwise plan for a huge celebration. 4 June 17, 2021 n 15
