Allston Pudding
See what we did there? With the title? You’re welcome. Anyway it is utterly impossible to capture the sheer beauty of Newport Folk Festival in a “preview” on a “blog” inside the internet, so read every third word of this dinky little preview, scalp a ticket on the craig’s list (but buy tickets early the right way next year, ya dingus!) and come see for yourself why this has become the best weekend of the New England summer.
1. Collaborations. Time and time again, the incestuous lineup reeks of potential on-stage collaborations. Half these folks have either toured together within the past few years, played on each other’s records, covered eachother’s songs (Puss N Boots juuuuust released their cover of the Wilco classic “Jesus, etc.”), or sat around a camp fire in L.A or Nashville or wherever I am not and and planned their next great jaunt around the world. “We’ll tour in hot air balloons!” one might mutter, bitter that he hasn’t had a turn on the ol’ Acoustic. Though, eventually, everyone will go to bed, and he’ll play. Oh, he’ll play.
2. Speaking of collaborations, collaborate your beer with your Dels lemonade and be a fucking boss. Last year, upon remembering the worst part of NFF (no roaming beverages!) a couple of crafty ladies (yours truly) realized you could disguise yo beer in an extra large Dels lemonade cup, and so the greatest shandy of all was born. Not only is this drink deliciously refreshing, but it conveniently allows one to drink it wherever they damn well please, because no one on staff at the festival would expect anyone to be so… tacky? Months later, ‘Gansett STOLE our idea, but now I can order this nectar anywhere I go, so I’m not complaining.
3. Back to the music. Just kidding, let’s talk about the weather! Supposed to be sunny this year, that’ll be a delicious change!
4. Another delicious change (or to some, the elephant in the fort): Newport’s lack of hoighty-toityness about what constitutes as ‘folk’ music. Traditionalists would sneeze at what I think are some of this year’s most exciting acts (Benjamin Booker, Reignwolf, Jackalope White), who happen to draw their influences from the gritty, blues-rock side of folk history rather than the songs of the mountain.
5. Has Sun Kil Moon ever lived on a mountain? Can we all make a promise that no one speaks during his set (except, of course, if Mark has something endearing and witty to say). I don’t want to know that another soul exists while he plays: it’ll just be me, a metaphorical mountain, and my Panera bread.
4.1. Please make time to go see the beginning of Reignwolf’s set, even if you can’t stick around for the whole thing. It’s every bit as rabid as his name implies.
6. Beyond the festival, which ends at the family-appropriate hour of 7:30pm, Newport offers a host of places to keep the party alive well after the gates close each night. Aside from the notorious (and very sold out) Deer Tick after shows at the Newport Blues Cafe (
see each night’s lineup here!) and the Jane Pickens after shows, there are plenty of bars and restaurants to keep you fueled well into the night. One of our favorite alternative options: head over to Jimmy’s Saloon for
Newport Nights on July 26th, featuring sets from Tigerman Woah, The Silks, Oldjack, The Rationales, and Nate Leavitt.
