MATT BARRETT’S TALES FROM THE ROCK N ROLL CRYPT: Episode 7
FESTIVAL!
I had been accepted. I was playing the Black Mountain Festival. A real music festival with thousands of people. I imagined myself like John Sebastian at Woodstock singing my songs and telling stories in between them to a sea of people, stoned, tripping, and happy in the sunshine and mountain air. This could be my big break. When you play your heart out to thousands
of people good things are bound to happen.
When I got to the festival and looked at the schedule I couldn’t find my name anywhere. Finally JW who was there with The Chickenwire Gang found it in the Songwriter’s Tent, sandwiched between Billy Miller and friends and Jim Smith. This was not going as planned. “No, this is good”, JW told me authoritatively. “The songwriter’s tent is where people go who really listen to the music. It’s perfect for you.”
The Songwriter’s tent had a small stage and about 50 folding chairs from a high school cafeteria. Not exactly the rolling hills of tie-dyed t-shirted hippies I had imagined, but with me more than one person is a crowd. And even though I was one of the last three performers of the day, scheduled for 8pm, the tent was full when Billy Miller and friends began their 45 minute set. An hour and a half later and the crowd thinning he announced “Since we are the last act of the night I guess we’ll just keep playing.”
“NOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Jim Smith and I both yelled in unison. Then Billy recalled that we had actually told him before he played that we were up after him and to please not lose himself so much in his music that he goes past his allotted time.
“Oh OK. Then we’ll do one more”. He and his friends then embarked on a final song that turned into a 40 minute Grateful Dead style jam including bongo drum solo, which further thinned out the crowd to just a couple rows and a few scattered seats.
Jim Smith came up to me and pointed to the handful of people who had survived Billy’s set. “Matt, I have a favor to ask of you. This is my family. They drove here from Salisbury to see me play and they are tired and want to go home. I know it’s a lot to ask but would you switch spots with me?”
I looked at Jim’s family. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins and even a grandparent or two, if I refused and forced them to sit through my set so they could hear Jim it would have been my biggest crowd in years. But as I looked into their pleading eyes and saw the youngest children yawning and trying to stay awake.I knew there was only one thing I could say:
“I’ll do an abbreviated medley of my greatest hits and it shouldn’t be more than half an hour before your family will get to hear you”.
No. Not really. I said of course I would switch and Jim played to his family and they all left happy and I played my set to the sound man.
My first and last music festival. I went back to my tent to sleep next to my girlfriend who had missed my set because she was tripping on acid.