Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians play Lockn' Festival Friday, August 23. Publicity photo by Todd Crusham
Starry nights: Edie Brickell rejoins her band the New Bohemians for a string of festival dates, including a slot at Lockn.’ Though Brickell and the band have been on-and-off since rising to fame in 1988 with the album Shooting Rubberbands At The Stars and it’s inescapable hit “What I Am,” they’ve maintained a fanbase so rabid it’d put “a smile on a dog.” Brickell’s spent her off-tour years raising children with hubby Paul Simon, and collaborating with Steve Martin on the Tony-nominated Broadway musical Bright Star.
The chief of Wintergreen Fire & Rescue appears unhappy that his bid to provide emergency medical services to Lockn’ this year was not accepted, and he posted a complaint on Facebook July 18 that takes aim at Lockn’ and UVA Health System, the likely new EMS provider.
“Unfortunately, the festival has never been profitable and this year the promoters were forced to make major changes,” writes Chief Curtis Sheets. “The most significant change was to cut the scope of the event in half. Reducing the scope opened the door for other vendors to bid on the services we typically provide.”
Lockn’ organizer Dave Frey provides a different reason for the change. The four-day event this year moves from Oak Ridge estate, where it has been held the past four years, to Infinity Downs, which Frey and partner Peter Shapiro own.
This year’s August 24-27 festival doesn’t have headliners like the Dead, the Who or Bob Seger who have taken the stage in the past, says Frey. That’s why he anticipates a smaller festival of around 15,000 instead of around 30,000. And he disputes Sheets’ allegation the event is “capped” at 15,000.
The new venue has 11 gates rather than the 37 at Oak Ridge. “There’s no point in being overstaffed,” says Frey, and the amount of police, fire, EMS and food should be proportionate to the number of people attending.
“Curtis turned in the same bid as last year,” says Frey.
Sheets points out that Lockn’ promised to use local contractors, and that others will suffer with the change, including the Nelson County Rescue Squad, from which Wintergreen leased ambulances. The Wintergreen squad won’t have Lockn’ income for capital expenditures, says Sheets, and the staff will lose the opportunity to earn money for “family vacations and Christmas funds.”
“Wintergreen is a for-profit EMS,” says Frey. Lockn’ will be re-engaging the Lovingston Fire Department, Nelson County Sheriff’s Office and the Virginia State Police, he says.
In his Facebook screed, Sheets says he had “copious conversation” with UVA administration about the “inappropriateness” of expanding UVA’s special event business into rural Nelson. “UVA assured me that if invited to bid, they would waive off the opportunity because it could undermine a rural EMS system, which is a partner in the UVA network,” he writes.
“I’ve never seen an emergency response entity attack another like this,” says Frey. “Curtis acted like we owed it to him. If we don’t engage UVA, we’ll go somewhere else.”
When C-VILLE spoke to Frey July 20, he said UVA had not been hired. On July 24, he said UVA would be hired soon.
Sheets did not respond to phone calls and an email from C-VILLE Weekly. His post on the fire and rescue’s Facebook page has been removed.
“It’s a shame,” says Frey. “I really like Curtis as a person.”
Most of the medical issues at the festival are heat and dehydration, says Frey, who touts the skills of Dr. Bill—UVA’s emergency medicine prof William Brady—in the MASH tent, which makes the event safer, he says.
“We’ve spent millions engaging people in Nelson County,” he says.
He adds, “We’re about safety first.”
Correction August 1: Bob Seger’s name was misspelled.
The Revivalists will headline the Blue Ridge Bowl at Infinity Downs Farm in Arrington on
Saturday with support from People’s Blues of Richmond and Moogatu. Photo by Travis Shinn
In 2013, Dave Frey and his partner, fellow music promoter Peter Shapiro, started the Lockn’ Festival, a multi-genre musical blowout that takes place in late summer on the sprawling Oak Ridge Farm in the Nelson County town of Arrington. Over the past four years the event has brought an array of heavyweight acts in roots, jam and classic rock, including Tom Petty, Phish, the Allman Brothers Band, John Fogerty and members of the Grateful Dead.
With Lockn’ in place as an annual happening, the organizers are expanding their ambitions for the festival site with Infinity Downs Farm. The new venue (briefly called Nelson County Preserve before being renamed this year) encompasses 387 acres adjacent to Oak Ridge and holds the Blue Ridge Bowl, a small amphitheater that’s used as a secondary stage during Lockn’. Frey and Shapiro purchased the land in 2014 and will use it to host a range of events, including concerts, day festivals and races.
Following important infrastructure investments—drilling wells, adding power sources and installing a 56,000-gallon water tank to have a reliable supply of clean water—the owners of Infinity Downs are opening the venue this weekend, starting with a show by New Orleans-based, soul-rock band The Revivalists on April 22.
“Once we got through the improvements, we took a breath and then started to plan the next phase, more programming,” says Frey. “Now we’re ready to get back to what we do, which is promoting shows. We also want to be ambitious and pair different things with music.”
Indeed, some creative plans are in the works for the new venue, which sits right off Route 29 about halfway between Charlottesville and Lynchburg, and, according to Frey, can be scaled to hold between 1,000 and 12,000 people. A week after the April 29 opening concert, the farm will be the site of A Day at the Downs, a uniquely paired Wine and Wildlife Festival. The day benefits the Arrington-based Wildlife Conservation Center, and will blend tastings from a variety of Virginia wineries with the opportunity to view rare and endangered animals like the bongo antelope. The musical offering comes from versatile piano ace Bruce Hornsby, along with opening sets from local artists Michael Coleman and Erin Lunsford.
More regional artists will play Infinity Downs on June 17 at Community Day, another day-long event that features local food vendors, family activities and the Rockn’ to Lockn’ band competition, with six independent Virginia bands competing for three open slots on the main stage at Lockn’, which is set to return on August 24-27.
“That’s something I’m really proud of,” says Frey. “There are so many great bands in Virginia, but few opportunities for those just starting out.”
Beyond the upcoming music-focused events on the Infinity Downs schedule, which includes The Festy Experience on October 5-8, the venue will also be the site of a new craft beer festival—the inaugural Brewmasters Ball on June 2 featuring Keller Williams—and a two-day Reebok Spartan Race on June 3-4. With plenty of open space, overnight camping will be offered at most events.
Frey says he wants to add more endurance races and organized outdoor activities in an effort to get more people on the property’s seven miles of onsite hiking and mountain biking trails, blazed with help from pro trail builder Dave King, who’s sculpted bike courses for the X Games and BMX.
Besides the seven events currently on the schedule, Frey says one or two more could potentially be added at Infinity Downs this year.
“This isn’t a place where we have to have 30 events a year,” he adds. “This will be a destination. We’re going to have special events that we can build over time and hopefully grow into evergreen events.”
Get down at the Downs
When you first hear about a band called The Revivalists from New Orleans, certain sounds come to mind. Jazz and funk? Sure, bits of both are in the mix, but this Crescent City septet is more focused on blending its influences into a well-rounded rock sound. Formed in 2007, the group found fast favor in the jam band world, after an endorsement from guitarist Warren Haynes and opening slots with Gov’t Mule.
But the band’s taut grooves—colored with horn blasts and spacey pedal steel fills—often give way to catchy pop-minded hooks. Case in point is the breakout single “Wish I Knew You” from the group’s latest album,Men Amongst Mountains. The tune, which cruises with an infectious, jangly strut, hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Songs chart last fall, and the band performed it on “Conan” back in December.
The dynamic outfit gets a big boost from frontman Dave Shaw, a vocal powerhouse who delivers dance-ready earworms with an arena-ready soulful howl.
The J. Geils Band frontman and radio DJ Peter Wolf—drawing comparisons to Mick Jagger thanks to his acrobatic stage presence, raw shimmy and vocal dexterity—propelled the band up the charts with “Come Back,” “Centerfold,” “Freeze Frame” and “Love Stinks.” Publicity photo
In the early ’80s, at the advent of the new MTV era, Peter Wolf led one of the most popular rock ‘n’ roll bands on the airwaves. The high-energy blues of Boston’s The J. Geils Band formed around John Geils’ guitar licks and the innovative use of rock harmonica, but it was frontman and radio DJ Wolf who—drawing comparisons to Mick Jagger thanks to his acrobatic stage presence, raw shimmy and vocal dexterity—propelled the band up the charts with “Come Back,” “Centerfold,” “Freeze Frame” and “Love Stinks.”
Wolf, 70, released his eighth studio album, A Cure For Loneliness, in April and will perform at Lockn’ on Friday night.
C-VILLE Weekly: What inspires you as an artist at this point in your career?
Peter Wolf: Always my love of music, just reaching for a record and giving it a spin helps me to keep writing and recording relevant music.
How would you describe The J. Geils Band’s cultural impact on music during the height of its popularity…and the band’s legacy?
It presented, to a large majority of the listening audience, artists and genres many people were unaware of at the time.
How has rock ‘n’ roll changed?
Through technology.
Can you tell us one pro and one con of being a musician
in a successful band?
Pro…meeting musicians who I always admired.
Do you ever get back in the seat as a radio DJ?
Yes, and I always enjoy doing it when I can.
What do you currently listen to?
All kinds of music.
Tell us a story about your greatest rock-star moment.
No one greatest moment, but many, such as working with Merle Haggard, Mick Jagger and Aretha Franklin.
What can fans at Lockn’ expect to hear during your
set on Friday?
A mix of solo and Geils performed by a great group of musicians.
Neal Casal may be the hardest-working guitarist on the jam scene. He will play four sets with three different bands over the four-day festival. Publicity photo
For the fourth straight year, the Lockn’ Festival will return to the Oak Ridge Farm in Arrington. Once again, the musical marathon will offer a deep roster of heavyweights in the worlds of jam and roots rock, boasting big sets by Phish, My Morning Jacket, Ween, Phil Lesh of the Grateful Dead and Tedeschi Trucks Band, among many others. While watching such sonically adventurous acts, the crowd is bound to witness plenty of guitar acrobatics-—from established veterans to younger upstarts, these are the fleet-fingered players guaranteed to deliver lingering leads and peak solos, creating the transcendent moments that make festivals unforgettable.
The incredibly versatile Trey Anastasio leads Phish through four sets over two nights at Lockn’ this weekend. Photo by Jay Blakesberg
Trey Anastasio
Lockn’ organizers nabbed a big one when they secured jam legend Phish to headline two days of the festival. The group, scheduled to close the main stage on Friday and Sunday with two sets each night, rarely plays multi-band events, but as Lockn’ has become the country’s premier jam summit, it seems appropriate for the quartet to make an appearance.
After more than three decades together, Phish has established a massive fan base that continues to flock to its lengthy live shows. While the group is comprised of four highly skilled players—each integral to the band’s exploratory sound—guitarist Trey Anastasio is clearly the leader. Through 30-plus years on stage, Anastasio has secured his place as the jam scene’s preeminent axe wizard. His nimble fingers guide Phish through an undeniably impressive mix of complex compositions, dance-ready grooves and improvisational journeys. When not navigating one of Phish’s intricate, orchestrated passages in double-digit epics such as “You Enjoy Myself” and “Fluffhead,” Anastasio uses his Languedoc guitar for full-throttle rock assaults and open-ended exploration.
Phish casts a wide net when it comes to genre inclusivity, and the band’s sets are often peppered with interesting covers. It’s not uncommon to hear Anastasio picking a bluegrass solo in an electric version of Bill Monroe’s “Uncle Pen,” ripping blues licks in Son Seals’ “Funky Bitch” or slicing funk chords in Stevie Wonder’s “Boogie On Reggae Woman.”
Anastasio, at 51, clearly is still interested in expanding his range on his instrument. Last summer he was tapped as lead guitarist for Fare Thee Well, the Grateful Dead’s five massive stadium concerts that were billed as the last time the band’s remaining original members would all play together. When asked by Rolling Stone about his intense, six-month preparation for filling the role of the Dead’s iconic frontman, Jerry Garcia, Anastasio said: “The cool thing is it got me back inside the guitar.”
Gary Clark Jr. rips up the blues and sews it back together in kick-ass modern style on Sunday. Photo by Frank Maddocks
Gary Clark Jr.
Gary Clark Jr. grew up loving the blues. As a teenager in Austin, Texas, he started hanging out at the famed Antone’s Nightclub and ended up being mentored by guitar ace Jimmie Vaughan (brother of Stevie Ray). While being educated in the traditional scales of the blues he was also absorbing sounds of the ’90s FM dial, becoming an open-minded fan of everything from grunge to hip-hop. As a result, a variety of musical styles have influenced Clark, as he continues to hone a sound that blends fuzzy, snarling riffs with soulful modern song craft.
Clark’s breakout moment came in 2010 at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival. With the exposure came a heap of opportunities for a young player used to the grind of small clubs. He’s traded licks on stage with Clapton and sat in with the Rolling Stones on multiple occasions, and this past February he honored the late B.B. King at the Grammy Awards with a crisp reading of “The Thrill is Gone” beside Bonnie Raitt and Chris Stapleton.
Clark has released two major-label albums on Warner Brothers, the latest being last fall’s The Story of Sonny Boy Slim. A mix of slick production and raw energy, the record does plenty of genre-hopping, from dance-friendly party funk in “Can’t Sleep” to throwback soul in “Cold Blooded” to shred-heavy rock in “Grinder.” Clark, though, seems to save his real guitar fireworks for the stage. His pulsing, atmospheric mash-up of Jimi Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun” and Albert Collins’ blues tune “If You Love Me Like You Say” is live-show dynamite.
Tedeschi Trucks Band, featuring the most powerful couple in the blues-rock business, takes the stage on Saturday night. Photo by Manuel Nata
Derek Trucks
At age 20, Derek Trucks started a 15-year run handling the slide licks in the now-retired Allman Brothers Band, a role he seemed predestined to fill as a young guitar prodigy who happens to be the nephew of the Allman’s Butch Trucks. During this time, he also fronted his own Derek Trucks Band—a group built around fiercely ambitious explorations into expansive Southern blues, free jazz and rollicking instrumental gospel—and also managed to squeeze in a two-year stint in Eric Clapton’s touring band.
These days he’s focused full-time on the Tedeschi Trucks Band, a 12-piece beast of a soul-rock outfit that Trucks fronts with his wife, blues songstress Susan Tedeschi. The band, playing Lockn’ on Saturday night, hustles between global rock grooves, swampy Southern jams and vintage R&B. The stylistic versatility centers on the interplay between the bandleaders, as Trucks, now 37 and considered a master of his craft, swirls lyrical inventive notes around Tedeschi’s soulful singing.
Neal Casal
Neal Casal will be a busy man at this year’s Lockn’ Festival. Between Friday and Sunday, the guitarist is playing four sets with three different acts. On Sunday his main band, the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, has back-to-back slots, the second a special collaboration with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. During a recent phone interview, Casal broke down the bands that make up his upcoming quadruple duty.
Back in 2010, former Black Crowes frontman Chris Robinson decided to start a new band (Chris Robinson Brotherhood) to indulge his interest in psychedelic rock, and he asked Casal to play lead guitar. Casal had spent the previous decade and a half releasing a dozen solo albums as a singer-songwriter and doing a stint in Ryan Adams’ Cardinals, but joining the Brotherhood changed the course of his music career. “This band started another life for me as a musician with a different focus as a guitar player,” Casal says. “It was a real shift that’s taken a lot of work. I’ve expanded in ways that I never would’ve imagined. Chris needed a guitar player to fulfill his vision, and he lovingly pushed me into it.”
Three years ago Casal was tapped to join the super group side project Hard Working Americans featuring Nashville folk singer Todd Snider and Widespread Panic bassist Dave Schools. Initially supposed to be a short-lived affair, the band, which also features Panic drummer Duane Trucks, now reconvenes on a semi-regular basis and recently released a second studio album, Rest in Chaos. With a politically charged cosmic country-rock sound that offers tastes of distorted grit and expansive jamming, the band will play Lockn’ on Saturday afternoon.
“I met all of these guys for the first time when I walked into the studio to start making our first record,” Casal explains. “This was supposed to be a one-off project, but we quickly developed a rapport that made us want to do more. We have a lot of respect for each other, and every time we get together we feel like we have more to explore.”
Last summer Casal was asked to compose instrumental set-break music for the Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well stadium concerts. He formed Circles Around the Sun for a quick jam session that included his Brotherhood bandmate Adam MacDougall on keyboards and created some captivating impromptu tunes in the spirit of the Dead’s roots-based psychedelia. The results were so well-received that the songs were given a proper release, Circles Around the Sun, and Casal and company will perform the music live for the first time on Friday night at Lockn’.
“We recorded all of this music in two days, and it was entirely improvised,” Casal says. “With little time to think about it, we caught lightning in a bottle.
“When it comes to doing it live, the idea is to approach the show with the same spirit that we brought to the recording—hold your breath and jump. We’ll have little time to prepare, so we’re going to capture the vibe with a lot of adventurism.”
Casal has previously played with Phil Lesh and Friends in different incarnations of his rotating Friends groups. In a special set on Sunday, the entire Brotherhood will act as Lesh’s band and also welcome a sit-in by Gary Clark Jr.
“I’ve learned more from Phil Lesh than almost anyone I’ve ever played with,” Casal says. “He still carries the original spirit of the Grateful Dead—be the best musician you can be, but also be ready to go for it and jump off a cliff. When you play music in that way there can be rough moments, but you always rise to glorious heights.”
Best of the rest
For nearly two decades, Umphrey’s McGee has fostered a sizable fan base under the mainstream radar with a jam-heavy prog-rock sound that’s largely driven by the twin-guitar attack of Jake Cinninger and Brendan Bayliss. The band’s skilled axe duo engages in dynamic interplay, as they move between frenetic shredding and trippy wandering throughout a catalog of songs designed for extended improvisation.
Mickey “Dean Ween” Melchiondo and Carl Broemel both provide the lead guitar muscle in their respective bands, Ween and My Morning Jacket. The former gets the headline slot on Thursday and plays a second set just before Phish on Friday, while the latter headlines Saturday night. Coincidentally, both Melchiondo and Broemel are releasing solo albums this fall.
Tom Hamilton first surfaced in the electronica-rock act Brothers Past, but at Lockn’ he’ll be turning heads in Joe Russo’s Almost Dead (playing late-night sets Thursday and Friday). The side project led by drummer Joe Russo (Furthur, Benevento/Russo Duo) delivers high-energy, wildly improvised takes on Grateful Dead songs, often giving Hamilton the opportunity to go gonzo on Jerry Garcia’s familiar guitar parts.
Two more guitar aces worth watching: Duke Levine and Kevin Barry—both accomplished session players who’ve backed the likes of Mary Chapin Carpenter and Emmylou Harris. At Lockn’ they’ll be playing in Peter Wolf’s band, the Midnight Travelers. On Friday Levine and Barry will flank the 70-year-old Wolf, former lead singer of the J. Geils Band (see interview on page 31), as he works through old hits and material from his soulful new album, A Cure for Loneliness, which came out in April.
