Hardly Strictly Bluegrass

Yesterday, Tom and I went to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park. The festival is a free event, completely subsidized by a venture capitalist as a gift to the city. It started about ten years ago as a small, one-day affair with two stages of music. It has grown into a huge, three-day music exposition, with six stages and big names, such as Emmylou Harris, Steve Earl, Robert Earl Keen, John Prine, Willie Nelson, Indigo Girls, Chris Isaak, Lyle Lovett, and on and on. About 600,000 people attend over the course of the three days. This is too big for me and Tom and we will think hard before going next year, but we still had a great time.

The weather was unusually nice, surprisingly so after rain and cold had been predicted all week. Of course, I left the house with three layers, a scarf, and a hat, and had to strip down to my first layer.

We initially planned to see Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard, followed by Irma Thomas from New Orleans on the big stage. We headed over to that stage where we discovered at least 50 billion people. This was not unexpected, so we trooped over to a smaller stage. There, we saw Ryan Bingham, Reckless Kelly from Austin, and the Flatlanders, not a bad second choice. Although it was still crowded, we were able to find a place to put our chairs and see the stage.

A good time was had by all.