Gr8 Fish: Moab Folk Festival ~ Stunning & Stellar 03Nov23-05Nov23

Wow, wow, wow. Being in Moab in November again with Kala is a blast. The folk festival is excellent; the surroundings are spectacular, the weather is great, and the food is tasty. We arrived on Fri from Summit Co to dine at the excellent Bella Thai... prep is accurate and ingredients are fresh; yum. We booked at a new place for the stay, My Place; it's excellent with great room and facility features and nice views.

The festival venue was right in town at the Center City Ballfields. We traded our tickets for festival bracelets and joined the pretty big queue waiting for the gates to open at 10am. Prime spots in the sun were taken when we got through to the field but it was folk and the day would get warm so we chose to set our chairs front and center (like row 2). It was a chilly AM in the shade but we dressed right in layers.

First up was sweet Canadian Abagail Lapell who added Rachel Cardiello on viola and backing vocals. They were mellow with some punchy breakouts with nice songs, good playing, and sweet voices. At the morning break Kala wisely bought the drink tickets we would need later (when everyone else wanted to get a beer). Festival grounds were decent with good food trucks, outside companies, and clothing vendors... all among the rock formations of Moab.

Next up was our favorite of the day, Bella White, with accompanists on fiddle by Patrick McGonnagal and bass by Alan Mackey. Her voice was great with unusual breaks regular in her styling. Importantly of course was her songwriting ~ often melancholy (I like that stuff) or even depressing. Really good; some of her work is HERE. After Bella we ate at the #1 Mexican food truck in Moab, El Locale, on tasty street tacos. We also grabbed good German beers from the only brew vendor, Bohemian Brewey, a GPA and a lager.

While we knew it before we arrived at the festival, The Milk Carton Kids, one of my top reasons for attending, had to scratch. That was a bummer. In their place we saw Langhorn Slim, whom we'd seen before. He's always entertaining, and always wants to engage with the audience. He was better as a soloist to us than with his band ~ and the tunes he played were the same.

The headliners on Saturday were Tim O'Brien & Jan Fabricius; they are a married couple ~ Tim's picking guitar, songwriting and lead vocals with Jan's harmonies and mandolin were strong and often funny. They've been around a long time and Tim is a multi-Grammy winner. They are old like me ~ as was nearly the entire crowd (at least us seated folk) at the festival. I liked them, 2nd best; Kala less so.

It was an excellent 1st day despite the disappointment of missing MCK. We left the venue and headed right to excellent Italian at Antica Forma where we had buratta salad and Neapolitan pizza. Back at the hotel, of course we caught a sunset paraglider zooming around under power.

Sunday at the festival was warmer at gates open, partly due to to the time change over night. We still chose row 2 and again met up with our new friends, the very music aware and compatible Fresno couple, Gene & Dawn. We chatted in the queue and between acts ~ they go to a lot of concerts, and most are bands I knew and like as well. Odd but true. Gene was owner of a collectable card store and an autograph hound. He bought vinyl or CDs from each act at the festival and got autographs on each piece. He said the autograph booth and attendance from each act there was a very rare aspect of the Moab Folk Fest ~ it was their first time attending as well. Later we'd even learned that they won the charity drawing for a nice guitar and amp ~ they just needed to figure out how to get the stuff on the plane!

First up on Sunday was Kyshona and her "church," keen solo artists in their own rights, Shannon LaBree & Nickie Conley, making them the Kyshona Trio. They sang gorgeous harmonies and leads, most often in gospel styles. Very cool and very positive inclusive style.

Next up were the young, emerging band Two Runner. Fiddler Emilie Rose and songwriter/guitarist/banjo-player Paige Anderson from a tiny NorCal town sang best as a duet IMO. Paige led vocals often and Emilie was always animated. Super fun. They recently added a young bassist, Dan, from a stop on their current tour... great addition. He didn't sing but once but was a good add. Great Americana/bluegrass stuff. Andrew Marlin (WatchHouse) even joined them for a song.

The slick funky supergrass band Twisted Pine was next up. Best of the day in our opinion as they are so different. This 4 piece scored big on originals and wild interpretations of covers like Lucy In The Sky and Frank Zappa. So tight and entertaining on everything. The flutist was hurt and rolled onto stage but kicked ass on vocals and flute and commentary and the mandolin was killer while the fiddle & lead vocalist was spectacular; even the cool bass dude added an excellent country ballad. They morphed from swing to bluegrass to country ~ awesome. Watch them HERE.

Supergroup Mighty Poplar consists of Andrew Marlin of Watchhouse, Noam Pickelny & Critter (Chris Eldridge) of Punch Bros, and Greg Garrison of Left Over Salmon, and Alex Hargraves on fiddle. They headlined Sunday and were spectacular. Bluegrass through and through was delivered in sublime collaboration and excellent playing. They were miced differently than any other band at the fest with all but the bass playing straight acoustic into one vocal and 2 stage mics ~ very cool. Critter and Andrew did most of the lead singing, and covers as well as originals were included. It all was pure fun. Tim O'Brien joined for several songs and the members of Mighty Poplar complimented his cutting a path for their own skills and passion. Truly a great display of pickin' & playin' skill through their entire set... I didn't crop the "No Smoking" sign as I thought it funny 'cause these guys totally smoked their set.