Field notes from a long weekend at Green River Festival.
Part 1: Friday
Waiting on an escort to get my ten minutes with Kashus Culpepper, I nearly spilled my beer sidestepping Luke Tyler Shelton. Him and his band came strutting out of the VIP tent like any old Joe running to the bathroom. We exchanged a subtle nod of appreciation and I took a good pull of my frosty courage. Not a drop was wasted that day.
At the time it felt like nothing more than a funny moment. Looking back on the weekend, it probably told me everything I needed to know about Green River Festival before I even realized it. Nobody seemed overly concerned with reminding you who was an artist and who wasn’t. Musicians wandered around the grounds. Volunteers talked about upcoming sets with the same excitement as attendees. Everybody occupied the same space and for three days it felt like nobody wanted that arrangement any other way.
Day one couldn’t have been better. The shuttle ride into the fairgrounds was seamless and entry through security was smooth. The grounds themselves were far bigger than I expected, but somehow nothing ever felt too far away. The Back Porch Stage sat tucked under a shaded overhang just inside the entrance while the Dean’s Beans Stage occupied its own corner beyond the food vendors and makers market. The setup encouraged wandering. You could head toward one stage with a plan in mind and find yourself completely distracted halfway there by another artist, another conversation, or another cold beverage. I settled in at the Dean’s Beans Stage with Misty Blues for my first music of the weekend and immediately felt the stress of the drive start leaving my body.
That is one of the things I enjoy most about festivals. There is always a moment when you stop thinking about where you’re supposed to be and finally settle into where you actually are. Misty Blues provided that moment for me. The notebook stayed closed for a bit. The recorder stayed in my pocket. I just listened.
Luke Tyler Shelton was one of my must-see artists heading into the weekend, so I eventually made my way back toward the Back Porch Stage and caught part of the soundcheck. A decent crowd had already gathered by the time the set started. Some clearly knew exactly who he was. Others looked like they had wandered over because somebody told them they should. That happened a lot throughout the day. People weren’t treating music like a competition. They weren’t guarding discoveries like secrets. Waiting in line for food and drinks I overheard conversation after conversation between complete strangers recommending artists to each other.
“If you like this, you’re going to love that.”
It sounds simple, but it stood out. The entire festival felt built around discovery.
My first interview of the weekend belonged to Southern Avenue. Before the set started, I found myself standing near a group debating whether they should leave early to secure a better spot for Kashus later in the afternoon. One guy seemed pretty convinced it was the smart move.
“Man, if we head out now we can get a good spot for Kashus.”
Then Southern Avenue started playing and that conversation disappeared immediately. Nobody left. Nobody looked interested in leaving. They stayed. They danced. They sang along. By the end of the set they looked grateful they had abandoned the plan entirely. If you haven’t listened to Southern Avenue, you’re doing yourself a disservice. A family band in every sense of the word, and it shows. The love and enthusiasm they bring to the stage bleeds into every song. It was a fantastic set and an equally enjoyable conversation afterward. Walking away from the interview I found myself feeling optimistic about the rest of the weekend.
The makers market sat just beyond the entrance and remained busy throughout the day. Small businesses sold everything from artwork to handmade goods while festival goers drifted between vendors and stages. The people watching was almost as entertaining as the music. I spoke with attendees from New York, Philadelphia, Maine and all over New England. Some looked exhausted from travel. Others looked like they’d been waiting all year for this weekend. Everybody seemed happy to finally be there.
At one point somebody told me attendance had surpassed four thousand people. Had they not told me, I never would have guessed it. The layout absorbed the crowd incredibly well. Nothing ever felt overcrowded. There were no nightmare lines. No constant jockeying for position. The entire thing flowed naturally. Even the volunteers looked relaxed. In fact, many of them seemed just as excited about the artists as the people attending.
There was a consistent anticipation lingering in the air all day. That’s the best way I can describe it. Everybody seemed eager for whatever came next. The weather certainly helped. Temperatures hovered around seventy-five degrees with clouds drifting in and out throughout the afternoon. Not shade-seeking heat. Not sweatshirt weather either. The wind was another story entirely. It never seemed to stop and felt like it had something against everybody. Gusty and ugly. I didn’t take it personal.
As the day continued, I started noticing more children on shoulders throughout the crowd. Parents dancing with kids. Families spread across the grounds. Little moments happening everywhere you looked. At one point I glanced down at my phone and saw a picture of my girls. Then I looked back up and watched another father carrying his child through the crowd. You could almost feel the memories being made around you as music passed from one generation to the next. I took a big gulp of air, reminded myself why I was there, and headed off toward the next set.
After talking with Kashus Culpepper it became pretty obvious what people are seeing in him. The talent is undeniable, but what stood out to me was how easy he makes conversation feel. Humble is an overused word in music writing, but it applies here. Some interviews feel like work. This wasn’t one of them. From there I headed back out into the wild trying to organize notes and gather my thoughts. Not too many unique characters stood out on day one. Everybody seemed focused on the same thing. The music. The sets were easy to access, the photo opportunities were plentiful, and there was very little tension anywhere on the grounds.
War & Treaty drew a sizable crowd later in the evening and delivered one of the more memorable sets of the day. Their chemistry sits at the center of everything they do and every song feels connected to a real experience. As the set carried on, I noticed more and more artists emerging from backstage to watch. That’s usually a pretty good sign. Artists know when they’re witnessing something worth paying attention to.
By the time Charley Crockett took the stage the crowd had packed in considerably. He walked out dressed head to toe in black. Black cowboy hat. Black jacket. Black boots. He looked every bit the part of a headliner. The audience responded immediately. Charley has a natural ease about him. A little banter. A little swagger. Enough confidence to command a crowd without feeling like he’s trying too hard. I had made a deal with myself earlier in the evening. Stay until “Welcome to Hard Times.” After about ten songs and a couple covers, we finally got there.
The crowd still looked ready to keep going. I was not.
The day had started with a long drive and ended with a thirty-five minute ride to what would eventually earn the title of motel from hell. Charley was only halfway through his set by the time I finally headed for the exit. As I made my way back to the truck, I realized I wasn’t thinking about interviews anymore. I wasn’t thinking about credentials or schedules either. I was thinking about the people I had met, the conversations I’d overheard, the families scattered throughout the grounds and the artists wandering casually through the crowd. Friday had started as a music festival. By the time I pulled out of the parking lot, it felt like I had spent the day wandering through a community that just happened to be built around live music.
Part 2: Saturday
I woke up late Saturday morning trying to shake off a booking nightmare with my hotels. My standards are pretty low, but these places managed to make the Dahmer house look like the Copley Plaza. Between the drive, the festival, and trying to figure out where exactly I was supposed to sleep, I didn’t end up getting to bed until sometime around four in the morning. The downside was missing Lily Seabird. The upside was that Green River didn’t seem particularly interested in punishing anybody for showing up late.
I rolled into the grounds around 1:50 in the afternoon after what felt like an unnecessarily long walk from the far parking lot. The second I stepped onto the fairgrounds I could feel the difference from Friday. The anticipation was still there, but the weather had shifted dramatically. Friday’s breeze had packed its bags and left town. The heat settled over everything like a wet blanket. Every walk felt longer than it actually was, every patch of shade looked occupied, and every cold drink immediately became the best idea anyone had all day.
I caught part of Alex Amen’s set shortly after arriving. He has a nice Jim Croce meets James Taylor thing going on and I mean that as a compliment. I had reached out about an interview beforehand and got crickets in return. By this point in the weekend I wasn’t taking things like that personally. Some artists say yes. Some artists say no. Some artists never answer. The festival moves forward either way and there was plenty left to discover.
From there I made my way over to Sally Baby’s Silver Dollars. We had crossed paths briefly at Back Porch Fest and I remembered enjoying them, but seeing them again reminded me of something else. For a talented group, they make everything look completely effortless. That almost irritates me. Not because they’re doing anything wrong, but because you know how much work it takes to get that comfortable at something and then they get on stage acting like they’re casually ordering lunch. Eventually I stopped trying to figure it out and simply enjoyed the set.
One of the things that stood out most on Saturday was realizing I was beginning to recognize people. The festival was no longer a collection of strangers moving in random directions. There was a couple from Connecticut I had noticed the day before. They came prepared for absolutely anything. Chairs. Cooler. Supplies. Backup supplies. If civilization had collapsed somewhere near the Dean’s Beans Stage, I would have immediately sought them out for guidance. We exchanged the universal acknowledgment of people who have occupied the same temporary universe long enough to become familiar.
My brain hadn’t really decided what was next, but my legs apparently had. Before I knew it, I was heading back toward the Back Porch Stage for Fust. The interview I’d done with them before the festival had been one of my favorites. Authentic answers stand out when you spend enough time interviewing artists and Fust gave plenty of them. By the time I arrived, the place was packed. Every patch of shade beneath the overhang had been claimed and defended. Fans stood shoulder to shoulder trying to stay cool while soaking in the music. I managed to work my way about ten feet from the stage before reality intervened. Ten feet became fifteen. Fifteen became twenty. Before long I couldn’t take a deep breath without invading somebody else’s personal space. Physics had spoken. It was time to move on.
The next stop was Kurt Vile, and this is where my relationship with hats began to deteriorate.
I had arrived early enough to secure what I considered a pretty respectable viewing location. Then I made the mistake of being polite. A little old lady squeezed by me and I let her move in front because my mother raised me correctly. A few minutes later she started talking about her friend. Immediately I knew the fix was in. Moments after that, her friend arrived wearing the largest hat I have ever seen in my life.
I’ve spent plenty of time outdoors. I’ve been to
baseball games, festivals, concerts, campgrounds and beaches. Never once have I encountered conditions severe enough to justify a hat of this magnitude. It was casting shade on people who hadn’t even arrived yet. I took a pull from my beer and did my best to accept my fate. The problem wasn’t even the hat itself. The problem was that once I noticed it, I started noticing them everywhere.
As Kurt Vile’s set continued, the crowd kept growing. People poured into the area from every direction. Looking around, I realized the hats weren’t isolated incidents. They were multiplying. Every time I found a clear sightline another oversized brim would appear somewhere in front of it. By the time I left, I had become convinced Green River was secretly hosting a hat convention that nobody had bothered to advertise.
Making my way back toward the Back Porch Stage, I caught part of Folk Bitch Trio’s set. The place was absolutely packed, especially with younger attendees. They hung on every note and sang along to songs that had clearly become part of their lives already. Standing there watching, I looked around and saw even more hats. At that point I accepted reality. This wasn’t a coincidence. This was a movement. The Festival of Hats had officially arrived.
Thankfully, the music continued to justify every step across the fairgrounds. One of the highlights of the entire weekend came when Sally Baby’s Silver Dollars reappeared leading a parade through the grounds. Families joined in. Children ran alongside performers. People abandoned whatever schedule they had planned and simply followed along. It felt like a reset button in the middle of a busy day. Nobody was rushing to another stage. Nobody was worried about where they needed to be next. Everybody seemed perfectly content to enjoy the moment they were already in.
After the parade passed through, I wandered over to PawPaw Rod’s set and something shifted for me. At some point I stopped taking notes. The recorder disappeared into my bag, the notebook stayed closed, and I stopped worrying about documenting every little thing. Covering a festival is fun. Experiencing one is fun too. PawPaw Rod reminded me that sometimes it’s okay to choose the second option. I knew almost nothing about him heading into the set and left wondering why that had been the case. His connection with the audience was one of the strongest I’d seen all weekend and the music demanded your attention. You almost had to actively work to stand still.
For the first time all weekend, I watched an entire set from beginning to end without running somewhere else. No interviews. No schedule. No trying to figure out where I needed to be in twenty minutes. Just the music. It was a nice reset from bouncing between stages all afternoon and a reminder that some of the best discoveries happen when you stop chasing them.
As the sun began to set over the fairgrounds, conversations started shifting toward Spoon. I overheard one fan explaining to somebody nearby that they had waited years to see them and desperately hoped they’d play “The Underdog.” By the time I reached the main stage, the crowd was already dense. I found a comfortable spot stage left, settled in with a couple cocktails, and looked around.
To my utter amazement… The hats were still there.
At this point I was furious. What possible reason could there be NOW for all these goddamn hats? The sun was setting, the temperature was dropping, and whatever emergency had justified this level of head coverage had clearly passed. Maybe I simply don’t understand fashion. That’s entirely possible. Maybe this was my problem. Either way, the hats remained undefeated.
Spoon launched into “Rent I Pay” and immediately justified the wait. The crowd locked in from the opening notes and never really let go. Sure enough, the fan near me eventually got their wish when “The Underdog” appeared in the setlist. The reaction was immediate. People sang every word back toward the stage and for a few minutes it felt like the entire crowd was operating as one giant choir.
As much as I wanted to stay until the very end, experience had taught me a lesson the night before. Leaving five minutes early can sometimes save you an hour. Unfortunately, a few hundred other people had apparently learned the exact same lesson. I took one look at the shuttle line and immediately changed plans, turning east toward the bike path and beginning the walk back to my truck instead. It was a beautiful night and I wasn’t particularly interested in standing in another line.
By the time I reached the parking lot, I had messages waiting from my buddy at Floodwater Brewery telling me there was another show happening that I couldn’t miss. Most reasonable people probably would have called it a night. I pointed the truck toward Shelburne Falls instead.
The pillows would have to wait a few more hours for my company.
This is the life I chose, and I love it.
Part 3: Sunday
By Sunday morning, Green River had settled into itself. The frantic energy of arrival day was gone and the heat-induced survival tactics from Saturday had mostly worked themselves out. People knew where their favorite stages were. They knew where to find coffee. They knew which food lines moved quickly and which ones required patience. Even the fairgrounds felt different. Familiar. For three days this place had become its own little town, and by Sunday everybody seemed to understand the rules.
The ride in felt different too. Conversations had shifted. Friday was all anticipation. Saturday was discovery. Sunday carried the realization that this thing was almost over. People were already talking about the drive home, the return to work, and the reality waiting on the other side of the weekend. One guy on the shuttle was passionately discussing Geese while simultaneously calculating how miserable Route 2 was going to be later that night. It felt like the entire festival was trying to enjoy every remaining minute while also preparing itself for Monday morning. The weather couldn’t quite decide what it wanted to do either. Clouds drifted overhead for most of the afternoon and occasional drizzle rolled through just often enough to keep people guessing. The misting stations became popular gathering places and every patch of shade still carried some value, but nobody seemed particularly bothered by any of it. After two days together, the crowd had developed the attitude of people willing to accept whatever Green River decided to throw at them.
The first thing I noticed on Sunday, as I started mentally rifling through my notes while I stared at the ground, was that I had apparently spent two entire days overlooking an entire segment of the population. Why the fuck are so many people walking around with no shoes on? Had this been going on all weekend? Where has my mind been? They were everywhere. Not one or two people either. Hundreds of them. Barefoot people wandered the grounds with a level of confidence I could never personally achieve. Grass, gravel, dirt, pavement, it didn’t seem to matter. By this point the Festival of Hats was already well established, and now a new faction had entered the picture. The shoeless mafia had arrived. The hats remained undefeated, of course. At this point I had accepted that victory was impossible.
One of the unexpected realities of spending three days at a festival is how quickly small observations become recurring characters. The Connecticut couple reappeared. The volunteers were still smiling. Familiar faces kept crossing paths throughout the grounds. It became increasingly difficult to remember who I had met at Green River and who I had known before arriving. The temporary town was functioning exactly as intended. People who had been complete strangers on Friday now felt like neighbors. Not close friends. Not people whose life stories I knew. Just familiar faces occupying the same space long enough to become part of the experience.
Sunday also happened to be Father’s Day, and that reality snuck up on me more than I expected. Throughout the weekend I had noticed families scattered across the grounds. Parents carrying children. Kids dancing in open fields. Little moments unfolding between songs. On Friday it made me think about my daughters. By Sunday those thoughts had settled in a little deeper. Festivals have a strange way of creating room for reflection. You’re surrounded by thousands of people and constant noise, yet your mind somehow finds quiet places to wander. My father found his way into those thoughts as well, not in any grand dramatic sense, just in the normal way memories appear when you’re sitting in a field listening to music and watching families spend time together. Green River gave people plenty of opportunities to think about where they’ve been, who they’re with, and who they wish could be there beside them.
The music remained outstanding. Angela Autumn was one of the artists I had been looking forward to all weekend and her set felt perfectly suited for Green River. Watching people discover her music in real time reminded me of all those conversations I had overheard throughout the festival. Somebody was always recommending an artist. Somebody was always pointing a friend toward another stage. Somebody was always sharing a discovery. Green River seemed uniquely built for those moments and Angela’s set felt like another example of why.
By the time Lucius took the stage, the crowd had grown substantially. Then came the surprise appearance of Dawes serving as their backing band. You could feel the ripple move through the audience as people realized what they were seeing. Heads turned. Conversations stopped. Smiles spread. Some surprises land and some don’t. This one landed immediately. The crowd responded with the type of reaction that only comes from witnessing something unexpected and genuinely special. It was one of those moments that people would still be talking about while walking back to their cars later that night.
A little later I sat down with Thao. One of the things I’ve learned through interviews is that some conversations feel like interviews and others feel like conversations. Thao fell squarely into the second category. Relaxed. Thoughtful. Easy to talk with. The type of interaction that reminds you why chasing artist interviews is worth the effort in the first place. By that point the weekend was beginning to catch up with everyone. Three days of walking, three days of music, three days of chasing interviews, sets, conversations and discoveries had started showing on people’s faces. Nobody looked miserable and nobody wanted to leave. They simply looked like people trying to squeeze every remaining ounce out of a weekend they knew was running short.
Long before Geese took the stage, conversations had already started turning toward them. Every festival seems to have a handful of artists that people keep mentioning all weekend and Geese was clearly one of them. I found myself talking with another attendee before the set about music, writing, and everything else that tends to come up when two strangers discover they have overlapping interests. Before heading our separate ways I handed him an Ink on the Merrimack business card. It felt fitting somehow. Green River had been built on those types of interactions all weekend. Complete strangers striking up conversations, sharing recommendations, swapping stories and then continuing on toward the next stage.
The crowd for Geese stretched farther than I expected. People packed themselves into every available space and the audience bounced between complete focus and total chaos depending on what the band was doing at any given moment. Some stood frozen and completely locked in. Others danced. Others looked perfectly content to simply be there. Three days earlier they had arrived as strangers. Now they looked like members of the same tribe gathering for one final event before everyone scattered back across New England and beyond.
As the final songs played, I found myself doing what everybody else seemed to be doing. Thinking back. The artists. The interviews. The conversations. The Connecticut couple. The volunteers. The hats. The shoeless mafia. The families. The discoveries. The moments that never would have happened if I had stuck rigidly to my schedule. When I arrived on Friday, I thought I was coming to cover a music festival. Somewhere along the way the story changed. The music remained incredible, but the thing I kept returning to was the people. The conversations in line. The strangers recommending artists to each other. The volunteers who seemed just as excited as the attendees. The families creating memories together. The artists wandering casually through the crowd. Every piece of it contributed to a feeling that became impossible to ignore.
For three days, Green River didn’t feel like an event. It felt like a community. The biggest takeaway wasn’t a particular performance or interview. It was the realization that live music isn’t dead. If anything, the support is starting to come back around. People still want these experiences. They still want to discover artists. They still want to spend a weekend surrounded by strangers who care about the same things they do. Eventually the lights came up, the crowd began moving toward the exits, and the temporary town started disappearing. People headed toward parking lots, shuttle buses, campsites, hotels and long drives home. By Monday morning the stages would be quiet and the fairgrounds would return to normal. For one weekend, though, several thousand people built something together in Greenfield. Then they packed it up and carried it home.