I generally think of music festivals as minimally clad young people writhing in blazing heat taking duck-lip selfies amid a greater variety of substances than creature comforts. So it’s been easy to stay away for the last 30 years.
But there’s a whole festival scene that runs on a smaller scale and, we now know, seems just about right for, ahem, our demographic.
This year’s 30A Songwriter’s Festival along Florida’s “Emerald Coast” served up a pleasant mix of established artists and up-and-comers. It’s heavy on guitar strummers, as one might expect. But there is enough variety that we rarely felt less than interested in what we were hearing.
Chuck Prophet and Abe Perlman
Tickets weren’t cheap - $350 for two full days and nights of music. But mid-January is off season in Florida. Accommodations were reasonable, and we ate well.
Mary and I started dating in the early 90s in Chicago, when the music scene was white hot. Weekends usually meant shows at Cabaret Metro, Lounge Ax, the Cubby Bear, or Schuba's. One of the nice things we're re-discovered is that we still like being in the same room with good musicians making sounds. And Nashville has renewed our interest in songwriters and songwriting. This event seemed like just the thing.
The crowd skews to the empty nest set and older - folks with the time to come to something like this. And there's a silly tendency to look around and "feel old." But I just told myself I might have traded elbows with a few of these people at that Husker Du show back in 1984. There's a fellowship of shared passion that feels comfortable.
The 30A Songwriter's Festival is spread out over several venues in the Florida panhandle east of Destin. It’s a beautiful stretch of white sand beaches and pleasant little towns. And The whole place works on a more human scale than the big party spots elsewhere along this coast.
The hit of our two days was Grace Potter, and it wasn’t even close.
Elvis Costello and Grace Potter. (Photo courtesy of Grace Potter Instagram)
The Vermont-born artist has had success on the country charts, mostly notably with her collaborations with Kenny Chesney. But her new solo album, “Mother Road,” rocks pretty hard and seems headed for more mainstream play. She opened the set with a white-hot song from the new album -"Ready, Set, Go". As of today, it only has 166,329 plays on Spotify. That will change.
She drew heavily from the new album, and – in the spirit of the festival - went into detail about the origins of several songs. My favorite of the show was “All My Ghosts,” which seems to describe someone who is behaving better than they used to, while keeping memories of less-than-ideal decision making close at hand.
“All my ghosts are out on the porch. Smoking reefer and holding court. I go outside and tell them to go away. They let themselves in and say "Hey, lady". And now they're calling up all their friends”
Ultimately, Potter sings, it isn’t the ghosts she is afraid of:
The thing that scares me the most is me”
We missed an Elvis Costello appearance in Nashville about a year back. But friends who went were less than impressed, so I was ready to be disappointed. But Elvis was in good form and good voice, backed by a band that included Bob Dylan guitarist Charlie Sexton, and original Attractions keyboardist Steve Nieve – always a big part of Elvis’ early sound.
A highlight was some background on the song “Radio Radio,” which he said was a reaction to the BBC’s decision not to air Sex Pistols songs. It was also the song that famously got Costello banned for several years by SNL, after he stopped the song he’d agreed to play - "Less Than Zero" - and launched into it. Legend has it that Lorne Michaels was flipping him the bird off screen through the entire song.
While Costello and Potter played on the main festival stage, other acts were spread over several smaller venues. David Lowery – founding member of both Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker – appeared on his own at Central Square Records in Seaside. His set was an example of what we like about these festivals, and was nearly as much storytelling as it was songs.
Lowery is known as an artist who doesn’t take shit from either record labels or streaming companies. And one of his new songs, “It Don’t Last Long,” is a wistful look back at Cracker’s music experience. We also smiled at “Disney Jail,” a brief memoir of sketchy amusement park decisions.
One highlight for Mary was Jeff Tweedy’s solo acoustic set. She’s gotten a lot out of his songwriting book, “How to Write One Song,” and was listening like a student. I could have used a little more conversation about the craft from the Wilco frontman.
Chuck Prophet has been on my bucket list for a long time. And though I still look forward to catching him with his band, his solo appearance trading songs with Abe Partridge was a treat. A preacher turned air force flyer turned songwriter, Partridge combines a sling-blade delivery with a sneaky good guitar style. We’ll listen for more.
Another discovery for us was Florence Dore , who is one part rock singer and one part English professor at the University of North Carolina. Not only did we like her sound, but we picked up her book.
Florence Dore
There were way more bands and artists we would have liked to see, but couldn’t squeeze in. Among these were Matthew Sweet, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Steve Earle, John Oates, and a host of up-and comers we’ve heard of but never heard yet.
We made one musical discovery in our hotel elevator, when I asked a couple and their teenage son if they were here for the festival.
"He's playing in it," the dad said, introducing us to Jack Barksdale.
He's a 17-year-old Texas-based Americana artist with a mesmerizing sound. And we tried to make it to his second festival gig, but couldn't. We've since listened to his songs on Spotify - a sound that is at once fresh and timeless - and we'll be sure to see him next time we have the opportunity.
Which leads me to the first piece of advice for attending festivals like this: Take some time to plan.
Although the main-stage headliners run in succession, with three big shows each day, the smaller venues are running simultaneously. You can't possibly see every artist on the bill. The time you take looking at the schedule and planning your days will be worth it.
The other advice is to not merely seek out artists you know. It's great to see "old friends" in intimate venues. But it's just as good to hear new artists that make you realize songwriting is alive and well in 2024.
(Editor's note about the variable quality of our pictures: We try to take decent photos at the events we attend. But we don't want to be "those people" who are constantly holding up their phones at shows. We snap one or two, then put away the device so we can more fully enjoy the moment.)