Neither wind, nor rain, nor sleet and snow... Well, perhaps a storm did pull the rug out from under us at Forecastle on Friday night, but even with temperatures reaching 100+ (!!!), the festival goers and doers didn't let up *almost* all weekend.
/ /
It took seven hours and two traffic jams, but my trusty sidekick (Bo Vance, friend & amateur photographer) and I arrived in Louisville, Kentucky on Thursday evening - ready, willing, and able to tackle the festival the following day. Of course, Mother Nature was ready to tackle back and not just with the heat.
After a hot Friday full of great music from the likes of Cathedrals, ZZ Ward, Sister Sparrow & The Dirty Birds, and Cold War Kids, the clouds started slowly but surely rolling in. And that rug I mentioned up above? It was a pretty rough storm, which cut short Sam Smith's performance and caused an evacuation of the Forecastle grounds for the rest of the night.
Saturday pushed the clouds away... but not the heat. Bo and I bounced between festival frivolity (as an ARC veteran, I was particularly jazzed to see Lower Dens perform), finding good BBQ to eat, and drinking copious amounts of water to stave off little things like heat exhaustion. The sweat was rollin' but that didn't stop everyone from rockin' throughout the day and into the night (if you've seen My Morning Jacket do a live show, you know what a great choice they were for an end-of-the-evening jam).
Also, sidenote: they had these great water refilling stations at Forecastle and that was the best idea ever. I'm pretty sure I drank my weight in water over this weekend in Louisville; summer is intense in the city, kids.
It was blueberry pancakes to fortify me as we moved into the final day of Forecastle. I had an interview set-up with Noah Gundersen (who is a lovely man to have a chat with):
The blueberry theme didn't let up either as there were these great frozen fruit-pop stands in Forecastle and I got the Blueberry Lemon to help cool down; Bo recommends The Fancy Pants, a grilled cheese sandwich using brie, with carmelized onions, walnuts, and granny smith apples. But soon it was more music and people-watching and finding shady places to rest one's feet (we got to see First Aid Kit and they were AMAZING) as the day turned into evening.
We've got a long drive back once morning breaks, so Bo and I have said our farewells to Forecastle (and hello to pizza but that's another story). But we had a wicked cool time - even if that's not in the literal temperature sense.