Day 23 - Go to the Ann Arbor Folk Festival

Date: January 29th, 2010

My taste in music is fairly limited.  And by limited I mean limited to whatever the radio station is playing this month.  I like tons of different music, but I've always been really lazy about finding new things.  So, when Tim asked if I'd like to hit up the Ann Arbor Folk Festival with him, it sounded like a brilliant idea.

 

I've never heard of any of these people.  That's awesome.

I don't know if you've been to a folk festival before, but there was significantly less of a patchouli smell than I imagined.  It goes without saying, since you're reading about it, that I'd never been to the Ann Arbor Folk Festival before.  I had been to concerts that fit my stereotype of what a folk festival would be though.  Much to my surprise and delight, this was much more of a traditional concert than I thought it would be.

 

Apparently this is just a California thing.

We had seats in the upper balcony of Hill Auditorium which was beautiful.  I would highly recommend going up there, if only to look around.  The auditorium is seriously majestic, but you can't really tell that from down in the orchestra.  Although, the last time I was in Hill Auditorium, it wasn't for a concert.  I was there to see a Michael Moore speech.

 

Not majestic.

I liked most of the acts, but for different reasons.  Po'Girl had a really unique sound and their lead singer was out of this world.  There was one group called Band of Heathens who had this amazing energy.  My favorite group of the night had to be Hoots and Hellmouth though.  They were just fantastic.  It was hard not to stand up and dance while they were playing.

The headliner, Iron and Wine, is pretty famous.  I vaguely knew the name before he got on stage.  While I liked his music and found his lyrics really interesting, he was much more morose than the other acts.  It was more like listening to rhythmic poetry than listening to music.  I did enjoy it though.  I liked the experience quite a bit.  I really wish I had pictures to post.  I know, I know... its completely unacceptable not to have pictures of such a fine show.  I hope you'll forgive me.  Besides...

 

...I did manage to get one picture

If you're in the Ann Arbor area, the festival is something I would highly recommend.  I was surprised to discover just how much I liked a couple of the bands and how little I like Benjamin Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie fame) when he's left to his own writing devices.  Seriously.  He wrote one song and played it 12 times.  The only thing different was the guitar, which he changed between each song.  Poser.  Of course, the highlight of the evening was the DTE representative speaking between the sets.  That's right.  We went to a folk festival co-sponsored by an energy company.  Go go irony!  He was there to promote DTE's green energy initiatives and to rock a sexy Norwegian sweater.  It was impressive.

The whole show was fantastic.  Like I said - I would highly recommend it to anyone in the Ann Arbor area.  Its a great experience.