Lockn’ Music Festival began its journey last year with a stellar lineup and the pristine Virginia setting. Over 30,000 people gathered this past weekend to experience all that Lockn’ had to offer. This year, they offered closer camping to the venue, a more extensive shakedown street, more stages, and even more delicious food and beer options.
The humid air and sweltering sunshine gave way to mass amounts of fans frantically setting up their tents and preparing for Thursday night. Unfortunately for some fans, the mounted police were scattering already laid campsites due to fire lane intersections. Attitudes flared and it just wasn’t the type of vibe one would get from the first day of one amazing festival.
The wonderful, gospel- inspired trio, The Wood Brothers followed. Brothers, Oliver and Chris Wood melted hearts with their number of tunes from their latest album, “The Muse”. They covered a crowd favorite, “Ophelia” by the late and great, The Band. The played an almost “greatest hits” set but everyone enjoyed Chris Woods beautiful voice during “Up Above My Head”.
The hot sun finally began to set and Umphrey’s McGee came to the Ridge stage for their first of two sets. They played one intense set that featured UM fan favorites like, “Le Blitz” and “1348”. They finally closed everything out with “Ringo.” Instantly, in Lockn’ style, The String Cheese Incident came out on Oak Stage for their first set.
Crowd pleasing, SCI played their own standards including “So Far From Home”, “Can’t Stop Now” and an intense Kyle Hollingsworth-led “Let’s Go Outside”. “Sweet Spot” was next which saw drummer Michael Travis and percussionist Jason Hann switch places before reverting back to do “Outside and Inside”. They finished off with “Little Hands” and “Can’t Stop Now” before Umphrey’s returned to the opposite stage. They started strong with “The Floor” into “Wappy Sprayberry” and a tune from Similar Skin, “Cut The Cable”. “Higgins” was next and it was squeezed between “Puppet String” and then ended things with one amazing “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” by Pink Floyd. Everyone was anticipating Cheese and The Gang, which would host The String Cheese Incident with Kool and the Gang. What was unexpected was the Preservation Hall Jazz Band horns as they began with a Michael Kang-led “Jungle Boogie” into a Jason Hann led, “Hollywood Swinging”. Finally Kool and The Gang came out with lead singer JT Taylor and members of his band and a trio of background singers/dancers for “Ladies Night” and “Joanna”. It all ended with the classic, “Get Down on It” and “Celebration”.
Friday morning began very hot and sunny and anticipatory of rain. A larger crowd gathered for The String Cheese Incident to kick off their first set of the day with a Kyle Hollingsworth tune, “Can’t Wait Another Day”. The funky, “Pygmy Pony” gave way to the Indian-inspired, “Bollymunster” and “Way Back Home”. They gave another “Celebration” tease while Sam Bush came to stage with his fiddle to help out during Bill Nershi’s “Bluebird Sky”, which was a moment made in blue-grass heaven.
Everyone was waiting on the big man himself, Bill Kreutzman and the Locknstep Allstars. This was an exciting late add to the lineup, since Bob Weir cancelled. His band included Disco Biscuits keyboardist, Aron Magner, Tom Hamilton, Steve Kimock, and Oteil Burbridge. “Let The Good Times Roll” and “Big Railroad Blues” were a few of the tunes that stuck out, as better than the rest. Keller Williams made his way out to cover “Bird Song” before Taj Mahal came out to do the blues tune, “Further On Down The Road”. The most improvisational thing witnessed all weekend came from “Help on the Way”,“Wharf Rat”, “Slipknot” and finally, “Franklin’s Tower”.
The only pause came before Phil Lesh and Friends took stage to headline. The biggest names were in Phil’s band- Joe Russo, John Medeski, John Scofield and Warren Haynes. The group started with improv-based tunes before they went into “China Cat Sunflower”. Phil took a tune from Steve Winwood, who would be on the same stage the following day with Widespread Panic, and played “The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” and “Dear Mr. Fantasy”. They also took on a Ryan Adams tune, “Let it Ride”. They even had time to put in Cream’s tune, “Sunshine of your Love”. The rest of the set relied mostly on Grateful Dead tunes, spacey jams such as “Unbroken Chain” into “Mountain of The Moon” and “The Other One”. It got faster toward the end of the night, going through greatest hits segment where the group covered, “Friend of the Devil”, “Shakedown Street”, “Sunshine of your Love” and “Franklin’s Tower”. This closed out the mainstage sets but music continued on the Triangle Stage with Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks doing a packed out acoustic set. This set was a total letdown. Not only was the beautiful harmony of husband and wife duo not loud enough, the crowd was backed up so far that you could barely see the lights of the stage.
Saturday, Jeff Tweedy and Wilco won over fans almost immediately. He lost a few when he mentioned the rainbow that peaked out about the crowd by saying, “Rainbows are stupid”. A festival full of fun-loving, “hippies” did not agree. He also made the assumption that, “you all look like you could be susceptible to some kind of cult!” However they went right into a top hit, “I’m The Man Who Loves You.” At that moment you could tell the band was no stranger to each other and they knew their twists and turns of songs well. They went into “Impossible Germany”, “Handshake Drugs”, “Jesus, etc.” and “Shot in the Arm”. We would see more of Wilco the next day following Willie Nelson.
Phil and Friends then took the opposite stage for a short set that was halted by impending weather. However, they were able to complete songs such as, “Mississippi Half Step”, “Dark Star” and “Bird Song”. an almost hour and half delay, fans return to the fields to see Widespread Panic with guest, Steve Winwood and Randall Bramblett. They began with “Fishwater, “Glad” and for the second time at the festival, “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys”. They also kept it going with a fan favorite, “Can’t Find My Way Home”, and another “Dear Mr. Fantasy”. They finished up with “Gimme Some Lovin’”. A strange thing was the repetition of “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” because it had been played the day before by Phil and Friends, which most said was a Phil-mistake. Why would he decide to play that if he knew Steve Winwood and Randall Bramlett themselves would be out with WSP?
Finally, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers opened with The Byrds’ “So You Want to a Rock n’ Roll Star?” They went down the greatest hits list lane with “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” “I Won’t Back Down”, “I Won’t Back Down”, “Free Fallin’”, “Into The Great Wide Open”, “Yer So Bad”, “Runnin’ Down a Dream” and “American Girl”. All these tunes gave way to complete sing-alongs by a field of fans. He raises his guitar at the end of the night and thanked the crowd for coming out in the rain to witness his show.
Later in the evening, Bustle In Your Headrow came out on The Relix Stage to play a slew of Led Zeppelin tunes. The cast of this band features Marco Benevento, Joe Russo, Dave Dreiwitz & Scott Metzger. If you can imagine this group doing Zeppelin tunes, then you already understand the amount of people that crowded to this small sideroad stage to witness their gnarly covers. They played everything from “Immigrant Song” to “Kashmir” and “Rock n’ Roll”. They channel Led Zeppelin’s songs with unbridled passion and energy.
Sunday, heavy hearted fans made their way out of a sleepy coma to The Triangle Stage to see Keller’s last set of Grateful tunes which was known as “Grateful Gospel”. They played “Passenger”, “Eyes of the World” which were all gospel- inspired which was perfect for a Sunday morning. The cool breeze made hammocks full of friends swing gracefully and it was one impressive morning to witness.
A reggae- inspired jam group, Soja took mainstage. They were humbled to be a part of Lockn’ because they came to fame right down the road in Danville. Rapper, Murs, came to stage with the band to cover their latest album, “Amid The Noise and Haste”. They jokingly announced all their love songs were about the next artist, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. They gained fans far and wide, while proud locals looked on as they left stage.
Potter pulled out most songs from their self titled album such as “Ooh La La”. She took us down the rabbit hole with Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” which was a crowd pleaser and she even did a few guitar driven, soulful solo’s as her band left stage. She also gave tribute to the late and great Hayne’s guitar tech, Farmer by playing “I Shall Be Released” and paid homage to road crews by thanking the techs, builders, directors and engineers to make Lockn’ possible. She left after her short set and it gave way to another set of Wilco, which had more onlookers this set.
After a long, almost hour long rest following Sunday’s Panic show, fans were anticipatory of the The Allman Brothers Band, where this would be one of their final shows leading up to their conclusion at Beacon Theatre next month. The night sky was finally clear and Gregg, Warren, Derek Trucks, Oteil Burbridge and Butch Trucks took stage wearing black Farmer tribute t-shirts. The backdrop hosted images of album covers, and past ABB memorabilia while incorporating psychedelic imagery through “blotter” paint smears. It was true vintage homage to a stage that was spilling out music from the past. The album to be played was “Live At The Fillmore East”. They opened with a “Statesboro Blues”, “Done Somebody Wrong”, “Stormy Monday”, “You Don’t Love Me”, a crowd pleasing, “Hot ‘Lanta”, a shortened “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed”, a hellacious “Whipping Post”, sing along,“Midnight Rider”, “Mountain Jam”, an uplifting “Blue Sky”, “Little Martha” and back into “Mountain Jam”. The set seemed short for some, and the night ended early at 10:45. Fans waited around, scratching their heads for another song, but to no avail, the festival had come to an end. It was an abrupt ending to a long, endurance-driven festival. The marathon was over. The Allman Brothers would be seen for the last time (or so it seemed). Fans left the field to finish off their libations and begin making steps to go home.
One Response
Great review.