Loose Leaf Notes

I’m pretty sure I heard Bruce Hornsby keeping time by repeating “Pokemon Go” a few times during his Main Stage Sunday performance that closed this year’s Floydfest.

He played with the Grateful Dead for a couple of years before Jerry died, and I’m happy to say I saw some of those shows. I also had some of his ‘80s Grammy awarded albums and could happily sing along to those songs, even though he has changed some of the arrangements.

Hornsby spoke of his friendship with Jerry Garcia and how he missed having Jerry play on his new songs. “So I sampled his ass,” he said. I looked up the term and it means when musicians use borrowed sections of music from other recordings in their new works.

The band’s lead guitarist did channel some sweet Jerry-esque riffs and there were even some young tie-dye wearing dancers spinning near by. Watch the crowd respond to the music HERE.

Then the bubbles started floating onstage and “Every Little Kiss” and “the water town” started to be about missing b-b-b-bubbles and then morphed from that into B-b-bad to the Bone. I think the reason Hornsby did so well with the Dead is because he knows how to creatively improvise and seems to enjoy it.

After the concert, festival founders, Kris Hodges and Erika Johnson, came onstage to express their gratitude and participate in a staff appreciation closing.

The crew lined up and hugs were exchanged.

Erika aptly referred to this year’s Floydfest as a “sweet 16,” which it was.

Following the staff appreciation, I came across a painter named Bruce who was painting a portrait of Bruce during the set.

This Bruce was from Danbury, NC, and had worked at the Imagine Tent doing mural painting with teens throughout the long weekend. He talked about doing a show sometime in the future of all art he’s created while at Floydfest.

On a side note, if you’re one of those people who wondered what happened to Floydfest 15, here it is.

We missed the Saturday/Sunday secret stage concert in the woods because it didn’t start till 2 a.m., but we trekked down the next day to see the site installation. We met some of the people who designed and constructed it and heard that it was a very well attended glow-in-the dark happening. It was dubbed Lost in Time, referring to the 15th Floyfest that leap-yeared from last year’s 14th to the 16th with the help of some Dreamweavin’ and a little Wrinkle in Time.

I’m already missing the festival. See you next year! – Colleen Redman        More on this year’s Floydfest and past festivals HERE.   / Our World Tuesday