It’s a tough time to be a festival promoter. The worldwide buzzkill that is COVID-19 has put a hard stop to summer festivals, wrecking music lovers’ vacation plans while also lightening the wallet of musicians nationwide, forcing them to figure out new methods to salvage some form of paycheck as their calendar was cleared against their wishes.
The two regional festivals that bookend summer – The Pagosa Folk ’N Bluegrass Festival and Four Corners Folk Festival – are local favorites, bringing some of the best in roots music to the secluded and scenic Reservoir Hill above Pagosa Springs. Recently taken over by KSUT Public Radio in Ignacio, these festivals are an extension of its independent roots-music programming. The festival that should be running the first weekend of June was canceled, while KSUT staff are keeping their fingers crossed regarding the festival over Labor Day weekend.
Never one to leave their supporters and festivalgoers high and dry, tonight (June 5), KSUT will provide musical offerings despite a canceled festival, with both Lucinda Williams and Tim O’Brien performing virtual concerts via KSUT’s Facebook page, web-stream or its traditional radio signal.
A regular performer at the Pagosa Springs festivals, O’Brien has been a festival stage staple since his early days in bluegrass band Hot Rize. He’s also been a public radio staple, recognizing that a station like KSUT anchoring a festival, whether virtual or in person, is a valid partnership.
“The community-sponsored radio has been the mainstay for folk musicians and bluegrass musicians and these alternative kind of things for so long,” O’Brien said. “It’s a vital link in the chain. Obviously, you need someone to sing it and play it, but you also need somebody to listen. And then you need some way to connect it. You’ve got promoters and folk music clubs, organizations and things, but they all are connected by radio. It’s a real kind of bare bones, basic element of all this. Before we had social media, we had the radio.”
With his life as a touring musician upended, the good things he’s taking away from the virus is the fact that he’s slept in his own bed for the most consecutive nights since he was a teenager, and a virtual show affords the opportunity to play instruments he doesn’t bring on the road, like a banjo or bouzouki.
And while a virtual show still offers some form of connection with his fans, there is a void in the communal experience.
“I just miss the connection with the audience. It’s actually been quite a topic for me to try to unravel what it is that happens between an audience and a performer. The audience is really just as important as the performer, they really provide the reason for us all to get together,” he said. “There’s so much feedback and so much of a part of our humanity. We grew up hearing stories around a campfire, we started as a species that way and it continues. Music is a way of kind of bringing everybody together, and it takes you away from the distraction of the day and it kind mirrors life’s experiences in song. And I think people singing along, playing along, whatever they do, we just sort of collaborate with the audience. It underlines our communal experience, so we need to keep doing that.”
Music lovers plan their whole summers around festivals, and the tarp has been yanked out from under their dirty, festival feet. Ultimately, the online performance of O’Brien and Williams is a way to attempt to keep some form of normalcy in a world that is now anything but.
“This in no way replaces the actual event,” said KSUT Development Director Chris Aaland. “But it does give us an opportunity to mark the occasion and give something back to the people who are missing the festival this weekend.”
Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager. Reach him at liggett_b@fortlewis.edu.
To listen
What:
Virtual Pagosa Folk ’N Bluegrass with sets by Lucinda Williams and Tim O’Brien with Jan Fabricius.
When:
7 p.m. Friday.
Where:
Seen on KSUT’s
, streamed at
or heard on KSUT’s
.
