The following article appears in the Sept.-Nov. '98 issue of FolkNotes.

Berkshire Mountain Music Festival: All Wet

By Christopher Weiss

We are mostly water. At times it is worth it to simply "go with the flow" or become one with the rain otherwise three quarters of one's life in the northeast would be cancelled. As I set off from syracuse that Friday it was raining hard - I'd bought a rain suit, extra tarps for the tent and remembered to bring the umbrella and the hat. I was ready to become one with the rain.

What attracked me to the Berkshire Mountain Music Festival (Lanesboro, Mass.) initially was my folk hero, Loudon Wainwright III, slated to play on Sunday. The web page for the festival also listed other impressive acts as well: Los Lobos; Artis the spoon man; Tony Furtado; Jiggle the Handle; String Cheese Incident; The Rocket Band and the list goes on. This was a first time festival and the setting was beautiful so beautiful that every thunderhead and cloud in the area decided to spend the weekend there as well. So what do you get when you put a few hunder campers, cars, food venders, trucks, tents and stages on a farm in the pouring rain? Mud, and lots of it. There was mud camping, mud frisbee, mud hacky sac, mud dope smoking, mud beer drinking and the best part was the mud dancing. On Sunday afternoon several of us took some sadistic pleasure in placing bets on the competitive mud exiting - those light front wheel drive cars had some long odds. Leroy Brown's Custom Continental was totally unprepared for the conditions and wound up looking more like a Dodge Dart at a demolition derby that had met its match . . . going nowhere fast.

The rain did little to dampen the performer's spirits though. The bands had fun with the crowds and praised us heavily for hanging in. Real performers put their best out there when they feel the commitment of their fans. I am no music reviewer and don't have the background to truly judge each of the performances but I will say that there were more smiles than frowns in the audiences. The beer was great, the vegetarian burgers and chili were superb. The main stage was only used once during that weekend. For some reason a higher spirit cleared the night sky for Los Lobos and they gave an inspired albeit too short show. The festival had agreed with the local community that the main stage would not be blasting music past 10 pm so they ended with only one encore. A slight mist was falling but nobody seemed to notice.

When Sunday came many chose to exit early but there were breaks in the clouds and word was that Loudon Wainwright III was going on. I stayed and I am glad I did. Loudon played to a small group of us in a fairly small tent and it was wonderful. He opened with "I'm Alright," played "Hard Day on the Planet" and a bunch of tunes of his new CD entitled "Little Ship." The audience enjoyed the sing-along he did with "Went to the Doctor."

I look foreward to next year's festival and do hope for nicer weather. The mix of music was varied enough to bring in a fairly diverse audience and the vendors were well selected. I bought a terrific Mexican Blanket for $12 and the most beautiful tie-dyed sweatshirt.

For info on the festival, visit their website at http://www.berkfest.com/festinfo.html.

This page maintained by Dana Cooke. E-mail me at djcooke@aiusa.com.