I just got back from Merlefest. Whoa. With an estimated 70,000+ attendees, it’s one of the biggest festival I’ve ever been a part of! We showed up early Saturday morning to be ready for first set (11am) and were surprised to find our new friends Cadillac Sky gearing up for their main stage set at (gasp) 9:45am! The amount of energy these boys put into their set made us step it up in a big way and reminded me that no matter when or where you play, you owe it to the audience to act like you are playing the headlining slot on Saturday night. We were amazed to see over a thousand people at our first set and standing room only at our indoor Lounge set that afternoon! What a warm welcome! We really hope to come back.
The rest of the month was a bit of a blurr, touring from upstate NY (where we saw a bear and two porcupines!) to Tennessee, South Carolina , and Massachusetts. I even fit in two solo gigs- one with Pat Wictor (double slide gigs never get old) and an unplanned jam with David Jacobs-Strain at his recent NYC house concert. The new record James is steadily climbing the charts, too! Up to #4 on the Americana Charts this week and spent two months as the #1 album on Folk DJ! I’ll be racking up the frequent flyer miles in the next few months with trips to Ohio, Texas and Oklahoma. But for now, the sun is bright in New Jersey and I just filled the tires on my bike.
Abbie