After a week home, I’m going to document my week at Cornerstone Festival, mostly for my own archival purposes. This is built on posts on the cornerstonefestival.com blog with a little more details and commentary here.
Fantastic weather today. It would appear that the rain clouds have blown out and the two last days are going to be unbelievably pleasant weather. It even drops into the 50’s in the evening.
The third day of Cornerstone was a whirlwind day for me. I have to say that I’m liking this new trend of bands with chiming guitars, keyboards, and heartfelt high-pitched vocals. It’s totally gettng to the inner-teenager in me that refuses to grow up. Some of them sound alike, but I can listen to a hundred of these bands all day long and I won’t complain. That being said, I tried to sample as many as we could around the festival this afternoon. The first band I saw today was Seabird. After that, I ran over to the Anchor Stage to catch a little bit of Redflecks, a female vocaled band with some older influences, almost like Blondie, but I don’t think that’s a very good comparison.
My friend David at the Tastyfresh.com van was doing a DJ session, so I hopped over there to visit him. The folks at the dance forum/website have installed a DJ station with turntables into the top of a minivan and are doing impromptu generator shows from there. I’ve got to say that it’s a pretty cool visual sight and it’s successfully getting them attention from fest goers for their shows at the Dance Barn at night.
After stopping by there, it was back to some more rock and roll. I get back to the Indoor Stage and Decapolis Label Stage to first see All The Day Holiday, a band whose first album was produced by Ric Hordinski. The band features drums up front of the stage, much like Mute Math, bedecked with balloons all over the stage. Then, it’s a quick leap over to the other stage to see The Future of Forestry. The band features guitars, keyboards, and even a theremin and they sound great. I’m loving all these new bands with lush instrumentation. Deas Vail plays at the Gallery Stage, so I hike over to there again. The band sounds a little bit like Mae and they deliver a great show.
Michael Roe is plays with Michael Pritzl in the early evening in a show called Roe vs. Pritzl. The two formed a friendship after sitting out late one night at their hotel after a show here at Cornerstone and the recent tour is fruit of that friendship. Roe first played a solo show at the Gallery tent touching on many of his classic solo songs mixed with some work from his band, The 77’s. After the show, I take a dinner break and watch a little bit of The Wayside at the Jesus Village Fish Fry and Something Something Else Tent. Michelle and John Thompson have served for years behind the stage working hard with bands here and it’s always fun to see them on the front of the stage for a change.
The evening shows feature Roe vs. Pritzl and The Lost Dogs. These are the veterans of Cornerstone and they always bring entertaining shows year after year. Roe vs. Pritzl was indeed all that I expected. Michael Roe and Michael Pritzl join forces to sing each others’ songs and take some playful digs at each other including the playing of the 77’s “Greatest Hit”, “The Lust, The Flesh, The Eyes, and The Pride of Life.” Afterwards, there was a fabulous sunset going on over the grounds, so I ran out to an open area and shot about a hundred photos. Just another beautiful day closing down here on the Cornerstone Farm.
I didn’t really have anything I was strongly adamant about seeing in the evening, so I moved around a whole lot and tried to catch as much as I could. I swung by the HM Mag tent where Whitecross, X-Sinner, Bride, and Bloodgood were bringing the 80’s back in a metal way. I saw a little bit of Bride and though I was never really a metal fan back in the day, they sounded great. I stepped over then to the Fat Calf Stage where Flatfoot 56 was playing another show. I’m surprised the tent was still left standing when the show was over. The concert brought perhaps the most worshipful moment of the fest so far for me when all these sweaty punk kids all sang “Amazing Grace” together at the end of the show. Gave me goosebumps, I’ll admit.
I swung down to the Dance Barn where my friend is keeping things moving along. His road-trip partner, Doug Theodore, was spinning and the crowd was just beginning to arrive. After that, I caught a little bit of The Myriad at the Gallery Stage. I heard that Jonezetta was doing another show at the Anchor Stage so I swung over there, but it was not to be. So, I headed back to the Gallery Stage to get a good seat for The Lost Dogs. The four veterans of Cornerstone, Derri Daughtery, Terry Taylor, Mike Roe, and Steve Hindalong delivered once again bringing smiles and howls from their long-time fans. They even indulged a couple of girls in a little karaoke for the night.
The weather had been cool all night, but by the end, I was freezing. As a Southern boy, I have a hard time reconciling shivering in July, but sure enough there I was shaking in my seat. Brrrr.