March 3: Blue Grass festival on the Beach at Lake Havasu

 

So still waiting for the Barbie jeep to be driveable... after fixing the head gasket, the clutch had to be redone and then the carburetor was 0#$0#$))(%$* and now we are waiting for a new rebuilt carb... 27 year old money pit, but so be it.

Fun thing this week was the BlueGrass festival on the Beach at the Lake Havasu State Park.  The organizers book out the park for a week, they sell RV sites (including dry-camping in the car park) to the BlueGrass enthusiasts and Fri, Sat and Sun is just music.  Due to the average age being 75, the music only runs from about 11am to 6pm, but then in the parking lots, etc. groups form up and start jammin...

I volunteered for the 3 days to drive them old people from the gate to the stage in a golf cart. Was quite the experience.  Expanded my very limited knowledge of the genre  - definitely a cultural thing, everyone is old, most people have been in the armed forces, 90% were repeat customers who have been coming to the same festival for the last 20 years, everyone brings their musical instrument along for the jammin sessions after 6.  Was lots of fun.

I actually did enjoy some of the bands and will post some videos if I can. Favorite was Valarie Smith and Liberty Pike - Valarie has a beautiful voice and BlueGrass is all harmonizing and melancholy/tragedy - even more than Country or Blues.

The organizers (a couple) have been doing this for years.  They do 6 festivals per year and if they feel up to it, a BlueGrass cruise or 2.  Next one is to Alaska....

Cry Uncle - surprising number of young bands.  Unfortunately not many young people in the audience

ETSU - Eastern Tennessee State University Bluegrass Band.  You can do a major in BG music there

All dressed up and ready to boogie

The temporary RV lot - there were about 1000 RVs there and groups formed every evening to continue playing

My favorite was Valerie on Saturday, but Cry Uncle and Becky Buller was also great.  Some of the music got to be a bit frantic, but the harmonizing was great.

Little Roy and Lizzie - great band and Little Roy is about 100 years old, but a great musician.

Lots of walkers, but the policy was if a chair is open you can sit in it until the owner comes back - which works great.

Cry Uncle

Me and my wheels

Valarie Smith singing.  This was also the only couple dancing intermittently and the women in the red dress that makes a brief appearance in the video danced the whole time every day which was quite remarkable...