Kerrville Ramblings

Day 2

Friday - The community continues to build for 1999, and the first weekend, as trucks, campers, cars and motorbikes continue to flow through mixmaster and onto the ranch, bringing with them more and more energy which goes into this wonderful mixing bowl (More on this tomorrow). Space and parking become more and more difficult to find.. We make a decision that one of our vehicles, (the one near the campsite), will stay there for the duration of the weekend, and we'll use the other car parked in the distant lot to get in & out from town..

Daryl Purpose emcee's a wonderful ballad tree, as newcomers and old-timers share music in one of the more serene locations on the ranch.. For more details on the background of chapel hill & the ballad tree, check out Day 2's report from the 1998 festival..

The mainstage activity opened with Susan Clarke from Albuquerque, a new folk winner from last year. She was followed by Eric taylor from columbus, tx. Both performances were warmly received by the crowd which was sweltering through the day's remaining sunlight.. Although it's cooler this year than last, with days in the mid-high 80's versus last year's 100+'s, it's still very hot.. The main difference for me seems to be a
reduction in the number of t-shirts i go through from 5 or 6 a day to 3 or 4 a day.. The nights have been ideal, with sweater's helpful after 10pm, but not so chilly as to make the fingers cold. Just ideal weather at
night.. Very few fires friday evening, ranch is still pretty dry.. I don't know if they discouraged them tonight.. Everyone has firewood, just not many fires..

Small Potatoes gave an excellent performance, Half the audience was into their music from the beginning, and the rest were sucked in along the way.. It's still a delight watching an audience listen to waltz of the
wallflowers for the first time, straining to make out one of the two parts, and breaking out into big smiles as they understand what is happening as the song progresses.. Spuds has added a new intro to the song, explaining what is actually going on, as opposed to their old intro which went over how the song was written..

David Garza gave a very high energy performance which has the dance section over on the audience left jammed with wonderful energy..

Carol & Buddy Mondlock were just as great as ever. There Kerrville experience is short this year, as they leave for a german tour in the morning. Carol's new album has just open on the german charts as #44. She
has started wearing all black. In germany, if you don't wear black, you're not "in", and all the tour consultants have been harping on carol to start wearing black.. Buddy, of course, only had to change his underwear to be in all black, so he had it a little easier.

Eric Anderson, in his first kerrville appearance in about 10-15 years (or more), was wonderful. He wasn't spectacular, since he didn't do just his old songs.. (wadda ya want, his old stuff is great, and we haven't heard it live in 25 years).. But he did work in thirty boots and one other oldie (CRS, Ozzie'll fill you in) into his set, and was a joy to listen to all the same...

Butch Hancock finished up the night with a performance so good, we didn't leave until the end... There's more to that than just "so what".. The mainstage runs from 6pm to 1-2 am. THEN, the campfires get started. many people head out to the campfires (or just head out) sometime during the last two acts. Butch's music is definitely of the "Texas" persuasion, and if you haven't heard it before, he's on the 25th anniversary CD, and has a bunch of albums out... Try it, you'll like it..

The campfires were in full bloom for the first time this festival, with lots of activity at Coho, SingKerrnicity, Cuisine, Nashville, NashBill, Camp Stupid had a good crowd, and that's only at the bottom of the
meadow.. Right by the women's bathrooms, Still in the Night, Dogwood Moon, and a few other performers had a large crowd gathered round..

One of the special moments earlier in the night was when we were headed back to the tents to drop off our mainstage gear and get in to campfire mode.. Michael McNevin passed by, and Ozzie made a point of saying how she wanted to hear one of his songs.. Michael started playing there, right in front of the outhouses down by the meadow, and within 2 minutes, there were 10 - 15 people gathered round in a circle.. halfway through the song, we had to split up due to a car wanting to pass, but when the circle
reconvened, michael picked up the song exactly where he left it, not skipping a beat.. Don'tcha just hate it when a car drives through the coffee house right in the middle of one of your songs ? "

I played the part of the kerrville tour guide for the rest of the night, leading Susan & Susan to many of the more established camps in the lower meadows.

Susan, & Susan (i introduce them just like Darryl & my other brother Darryl).. wussed out early, Susan P. about 2:30, and Ozzie about 4..

(FYI For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, Ozzie and Susan Moss are one and the same person.. Susan's a wizard of OZ freak)..

I'll be writing saturday's review at the ranch this evening.. (hopefully, Sunday's review also..) My watch say's it's 5:09, and mainstage will be starting before i get there..

On a sadder note, I've included, verbatim, a letter from Chris Chandler. Chris's absence this year, aside from being noticed by most, leaves a significant hole in the wonderous energy field that encompasses
this festival.