Lucinda Williams, the Roots Fest headliner, performs with her band during her Saturday night set. In many ways, the audience got to witness a songwriting legend that night.
Staff Photos by Nick Brothers
So normally, when you think of “music festivals,” you might imagine a bunch of young people wearing strange neon clothing — or not even clothing at all — crazy loud music going well into the night, camping in hot temperatures, lots of boozin’ and partaking in substances, and partying until 6 in the morning.
Fayetteville Roots Fest, however, was much more refined. The main event stage ended programming at 11 p.m. at the latest, but the party continued on at George’s Majestic Lounge until the bar closed at 2 a.m.
When attendees were ready to leave, they simply drove home to sleep in their beds or returned to their hotels.
The late night sets were pretty great, though. Seeing the Water Liars perform a laid back set at noon, and then seeing them cut loose and rock out at 10:30 p.m. was pretty cool.
At Thursday night’s special VIP event at the Garner Farm, Willie Watson performed a special set for those at the event. He’s a pretty charismatic guy, and he’s now a much mellower performer than when he was in Old Crow Medicine Show.
There was boozin’ going on, but there wasn’t a Budweiser or Coors Light can in sight. All beer was provided by regional breweries, and they were served in eco-friendly plastic cups.
The music was the farthest from crazy. It was elegant, heartfelt, and a little quirky. Whenever some of the bands, such as Hurray For the Riff Raff, started rockin’ out, they quickly apologized and followed up their rocker with a traditional folk song.
Alynda Lee Segarra, singer/songwriter for Hurray for The Riff Raff, performs alongside Yosi Pearlstein, the band’s fiddle player. Their performance hit it all just right.
This respect demonstrated by the artists of the Roots Festival was by far the greatest part. It was easy to tell how each artist held songwriting in such reverence and sang in a way that could soothe the souls out in the audience.
Then there was the free programming in the Fayetteville Public Library that offered free seminars about folk music culture, folk tales and songwriting workshops. At the Backspace on Friday night — which is known for its underground alternative arts and music scene — a real square dance was put on by locals who knew the traditional dances and had the patience to teach a new generation. The cool part is they do it every last Friday of the month, consistently.
Smokey and the Mirror, a.k.a. Bernice and Brian Hembree — the directors of the festival, perform during their Saturday afternoon set.
I’ll go ahead and say it after experiencing it for the first time. The Fayetteville Roots Festival is a necessary celebration of culture and folk music. Not only does it engage the local community and local farmers for its food, it sets a quality presentation of what makes this region so folksy and enthralling. It’s good to be reminded of your roots.
As far as take away shows go, those (in my opinion) go to Hurray For the Riff Raff, Water Liars, Willie Watson, Lucinda Williams and The Wood Brothers. Kudos to the booking staff to mixing up the generations of singer-songwriters to provide such a strong blending of talent. Not one artist was much of snoozer. In all reality, there was little to no negative anything to report about Roots Fest. It was managed and produced very professionally, and everything seemed to go on without a hitch.
We can only hope to see even more great stuff from the Hembrees and Jeremy Gawthrop, et al. at next year’s Roots Fest.
Justin Kinkel-Schuster, vocalist/guitarist for Water Liars, croons out a soulful, sad southern song. Look out for these guys, they’ve got break-out potential.
At The Backspace Friday night, a couple well-versed square dance enthusiasts taught the crowd the basics of the Southern tradition that is square dancing. Really, it was a lot of fun.
Alt-country legend Jay Farrar performs a somber folk set during his Saturday performance. While he may have been melancholy, his set was a treasure trove of songs from his career.
