Festival Season in a Northern State of Mind

Been awhile hibernating in my Northern State, but soon I hope festival season will be upon us.

I’ve been drooling over the line-up at Merle-fest, coming up soon. Soon as in Southern State height-of-spring end-of-April optimism that a Northern Boy like me can not fully understand nor appreciate.

April in the North is still a time of transition–it can be 80*F one day, and frost that night. I like my place, don’t mistake me. Variety is the spice of life, and what we don’t have for variety in menu we absorb from the worship of weather.

That said, Northern Springs do not make for reliable event planning. April is planning time, clean-up time, practice time. High school baseball and softball is still very much a hit-and-miss affair, literally and figuratively. Music outdoors is seldom on our minds yet.

Or shall I say, on our hands. We don’t have time on our hands either in a Northern Spring. For at any moment planning time becomes Planting Time. So it is with music.

Spring may be fickle in my Northern State of Mind, but it is also that time where all things are still possible.

April is a time to turn winter’s morass into spring’s hope and promise. If Merlefest is not within driving range this year, where’s the next likely affair? Do we dare try May any further north than Missouri? Or do we keep our powder dry for June and Bill Monroe’s Indiana Bean Blossom or the siren call of Telluride‘s rocky mountain high.

Go now. Turn off your iPod. Pull out an atlas—Google Maps help you get there, but you really need a good old fashioned paper map to really see the big picture. Pick a hope and a dream and follow where the mando-lines take you.

-jc

(Featured post on No Depression)

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