On Saturday, October 27, Connecticut College held its first Bluegrass Festival in the Arboretum Theater. There is something about the open sky, leaves falling around you and sunlight peeking through the bare trees and clouds that has a wholesome quality about it. It’s just you, the ground, the sky and the people, all together in one sphere of music. There was one point where Collier Grey ‘15, a true Texan if I have ever seen one, stood alone on the stage with a single resonator guitar in his hands. I may not have known a single person in the crowd or the song being played, but none of that mattered. The sound, sights and soul were all there.
Before Saturday, Connecticut College had never hosted an Arbo Festival, but judging by the success of this first endeavor, I imagine that we will have more in the future.
The show included three student groups, including the Well Known Drags, who opened the festival with about fifty people in attendance. The number of people peaked at about 200 when the feature group, The Defibulators, hit the stage. This New York-based bluegrass group has been touring for the past four to five months and is in the process of recording its second album. They are a cool group of characters who threw a beer at a birthday girl and just about anyone else who approached them. I spoke with lead singer, guitar player and banjoist Bug Jennings, who grew up in the heart of the south, yet was dismayed by most country music. Upon his move to Brooklyn, NY, Jennings rediscovered classic country music and has tried to replicate this sound in his group. He aims to “make country cool again,” with the help of his band mates: Erin Bru on vocals and triangle, Roadblock on the Telecaster, Metalbelly on washboards, harmonica and percussion, Smitty The Giant Fiddler on “take a guess” and Mike Riddleberger on drums. Their performance included a few classic covers and finished with audience members dancing on stage. Jennings revealed that the band’s dream was to own an eighteen wheeler truck of go-go dancers, so the crowd tried to replicate this, and everyone enjoyed the spontaneous country stomping, especially Jennings. If you like country music, you may want to check this band out.
The student groups, which comprised the other half of the performance, put on a decent, if not weird, show that featured some bands from the first MOBROC show of the year. A friend asked me at one point, “Are band people all goofy?” I decided to test my hypothesis by talking with Grey, who played an entirely acoustic, solo set. He was not that strange. My conversation with Grey shifted toward the idea of playing outside and the music, instead of toward his idiosyncrasies. As he put it, playing music outside, “seems it’s like the way it should be played. People just go.”
Unlike rock concerts in crammed, little underground venues, outdoor concerts, especially ones like ours, put more focus on the music. There were no flashing lights or obnoxious singers behind you to deter you from the simple experience of enjoying music. Jennings agreed, saying that “an outdoor venue in a beautiful place is a big bonus for us.” Outdoor venues are a nice, laid-back experience. For this reason alone, I think the festival should be replicated in the future.
