Four days. Four stages. Almost 80 bands and artists. All aregood reasons that the Finger LakesÊGrassRoots Festival of Music andDance lives up to its motto, "a music lover's paradise."
All are good reasons, too, that 10,000 fans descend on theTrumansburg Fairgrounds each year, for the region's largest musicfest, which this year runs Thursday-Sunday, July 22-25. What theyget is a musical potpourri of old-time, world beat, sacred string,country, bluegrass, Cajun, Zydeco and even rock 'n' roll, in anextravaganza that brings together musicians from around the worldand up the street.
Among this year's prestigious headliners are country legendMerle Haggard, the reggae elder Burning Spear, Atlanta hip-hop actArrested Development, jam-rockers Rusted Root, bluegrass outfitRailroad Earth, Zimbabwean Oliver "Tuku" Mtukudzi, and host bandDonna the Buffalo.
Joining the main acts are scores of no less talented touringbands, including festival regulars Keith Frank and the SoileauZydeco Band, Keith Secola and the Wild Band of Indians, and gospelsensation the Flying Clouds. And that barely scratches the surfaceof a lineup that includes a veritable who's who of local areatreasures and GrassRoots favorites (See my accompanying Arts Coverstory on a round-up of this year's musical acts).
But for the thousands of attendees, GrassRoots is far biggerthan any particular musician, and for many the festival has donemore than bring a world of music to town. Now in its 20th year,GrassRoots has forged lifelong friendships for some, served as astanding family reunion for countless others, and for a youngergeneration of music lovers, helped to put the town of Trumansburgon the map.
When the gates open at noon Thursday (tickets for one-day andfour day passes are available at the gate: one-day passes rangefrom $30-45, and full weekend passes are $110 for adults, $65 foryouth 13-15, and children 12 and under are free with a parent orguardian; please see www.grassrootsfest.org for more info),attendees enter a place where the line between audience andparticipants are blurred, and where the fairgrounds feel less likethe site of a concert than of a community.
Beginnings
The seeds for GrassRoots were sewn more than 20 years ago, whenthe band Donna the Buffalo invited two other Tompkins County actsto get together and perform a benefit concert to support the fightagainst AIDS. Gathering at The State Theatre, The Horse Flies andJohnny Dowd's Neon Baptist performed a show that had both a socialand a musical component.
In 1991, the band expanded its invitation list to include 10,000Maniacs and Ani DiFranco as well as a group of "dance" bands -Zydeco and old-time, honky tonk and Latin - to join in thefestivities, and moved the whole event up to the fairgrounds.
In stark contrast to most summer festivals, which representbrands as much as they do bands, GrassRoots was modeled after thefiddle festivals founders, the Puryears, admired as children.
"Lollapalooza hadn't even started when we put together the firstGrassRoots," Jordan Puryear said earlier this spring. "So themodels that some of us had been to were Clearwater and the NewOrleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and fiddlers' conventions."
As Jeb Puryear explained, the festival's founders sought tocreate an atmosphere that drew on the eclecticism of the PhilCiganer curated Great Hudson River Revival Festival inCroton-on-Hudson. "There are so many folks who get together itbecomes hypnotic, there's such a sense of expansive well being,"Puryear noted. "This is how people feel the love."
Like in Croton - also called Clearwater - GrassRoots is agathering where all music is local, even if it hails from the farcorners of the globe. The Horse Flies, who will be absent for thefirst time in the festival's 20-year history, are the perfectembodiment of this cross-cultural exchange.)
"It was fueled by the AIDS crisis at first," Jeb Puryear noted."But soon, it became a focal point for positive energy for tons ofpeople around.
"We were interested in creating a musical event that had asocial purpose on top of it, and they become equally important," headded. "We were creating the groundwork for a really long thing.With each year, it grows further and further into the localfabric."
Over the last two decades, GrassRoots has slowly expanded, tobecome both a cultural and economic juggernaut. According to aneconomic impact study issued by the national non-profitorganization Americans for the Arts, the four-day festival is anoasis for local businesses as well as music lovers, generatingapproximately $4.8 million of total economic activity in 2008. Andover the years, Grassroots has raised thousands more dollars for aseries of good causes including AIDSwork of Tompkins County, TheIthaca Free Clinic, Doctors without Borders and a long list oflocal, regional and national charities.
GrassRoots now
The festival features two large performance spaces, TheGrandstand and the Infield Stage, as well as the Dance Tent and theCabaret Hall, which functions as nightclub. In addition to themusic, the festival offers an Art Barn that exhibits the work ofmore than 40 area artists; a Healing Arts area that offers 20 waysto relax including reiki, massage, meditation and reflexology, andtwo youth areas that entertain younger festival attendees withstory hours, puppet shows and arts and crafts workshops. Since1996, a Kripalu trained and certified yoga teacher has led a 9 a.m.session for beginners and adults.
Some new developments this year include a Movement and WorkshopTent that will join the Healing Arts neighborhood, offering classeslike a banjo workshop by Lydia Garrison and Joe Damiano, singinglessons by Solstice's Elisa Sciscioli, and classes oncomposting.
Tom Burchinal, the lead singer of Ayurveda, who will beperforming for the second time this year, will offer a combinedvoice and body movement session at 1 p.m. Friday.
"I've been teaching voice lessons for some time, and as I wasworking with students, I started realizing how yoga could beincorporated into the vocalizing process," Burchinal said. "Singingis a full body experience and yoga is all about that."
Another new change is "Next-Door Camping" which will allowfestival attendees to pitch tents on Rabbit Run Road, just behindthe back gate for a flat rate of $135, first-come, first-serve. Onaverage 20 percent of attendees camp on site, and many others comeand go day to day.
This year, the youth areas will be next to each other andexpanded, back in the Infield area.
"One of our biggest priorities has always been to have afamily-friendly festival," Executive Director Rosa Puryearsaid.
Often likened to a family gathering, GrassRoots brings togetherfamiliar features while gently introducing new elements eachyear.
"What really makes the festival distinctive is the communityaspect," former marketing director Megan Romer said.
"It's an all-year round preparation," Puryear said and the eventit*elf is like building up and tearing down a small city each year."And we experience the same things that a little town has to dealwith, from figuring out where people will sleep and eat, toguaranteeing safety and security."
Sheriff Peter Meskill, who provides policing outside the event,commended festival organizers and in particular Puryear.
"The people that have been running the organization over thelast few years have been really great, and it has been really goodworking with them," he said. There has been great communicationbetween law enforcement and the festival, and it makes for a smoothevent year after year.
"It's a well-known, well-established festival, and this newgroup has really brought it to the next level," Meskill added
As for advice to festival-goers, he cautioned them to have apleasant, but safe time.
"Outside on the street, if it looks like parking is illegal,don't park there," Meskill said.
Further, he cautioned against drinking and driving and advocateda designated driver.
Later, Meskill noted that he would be inside of GrassRoots, notworking, but enjoying himself.
"I'm usually around. I always like listening to the music, evenif I'm working." He paused. "You know, I'm interested in MerleHaggard so I'm hoping to get in there on Thursday night."
Volunteer spirit
A large part of that community spirit derives from the broadbased volunteer ethic. To paraphrase a well-worn aphorism,GrassRoots takes a village. True to its name, the festival succeedseach year in large part due to the good graces, benevolent spirits,tireless dedication and elbow grease of the groundswell of its some1,300 volunteers. Talk about grass roots!
"GrassRoots is like a little city," Executive Director Puryearsaid. "It's a team effort. All of the attendees, all of the crewchiefs that volunteer their time, and all of the others that lend ahand to make it what it is."
Some of these individuals, who are on staff, focus onpre-festival set-up; others, like Stephanie Holzbaur and SuseThomas focus on working the event itself (both work in hospitality,at the Grandstand Stage and Infield Stage, respectively).
Still others, like Katy Walker, who is in charge of all ofhospitality and has been since the first festival, begins work aweek in advance and works through the last hours of the Festival.Along with her two daughters, Mellissa Goldsmith and Meghan Wood,and many volunteers, Walker constructs an entire kitchen and eatingarea in a barn, and then feeds up to 2,500 performers and staffmembers.
That barn, which now stands as a full working kitchen and dininghall, originated as a pot-luck Walker and a few friends threwtogether for the first few festivals. But as Walker explained to melast year, in between fielding questions from a line of volunteers,"it became clear that it would be better to pull together theorganization in a more formalized way." It now exists as awell-oiled machine, with more than 100 volunteers and manyHospitality sub-organizations under the auspice of Walker andIthaca Bakery's Gregar Brous' crew.
"Our first meal is Thursday lunch and that is 400 people. By thetime we get to Saturday dinner, it has been as much as 2,500,"Walker explained, quickly noting that this year she hopes to maxout at 2,000.
Walker and the other crew chiefs work to a certain extent asindependent contractors, with their volunteers under them. Thismodel, Walker explained, "stems from the idea - forged at the verybeginning - that what worked best is to identify people who wouldtake on an area of the festival as that crew's chief. There is ofcourse a high level of interaction, but in the end I have ultimateresponsibility for my area and she trusts that I will do itwell."
This volunteer spirit has kept a continuity with the festivaland increased the collective atmosphere. Annie Campbell, whoseToivo will perform Sunday at the Cabaret Hall, has provided theprogram art for 20 years.
"I'm not sure if they actually asked me or if I volunteered tomake posters," Campbell joked from her home in Mecklenberg. "Iimagine that I volunteered and they didn't have any other suckers.The first one was so ridiculous that they must have decided to workwith me for the next year."
Campbell's work is like the festival itself, playful andapproachable. Visually stunning, the programs feature brightlycolored animal creatures she calls "monsters" performinginstruments.
"I used to try to draw what the festival felt like," Campbellnoted. "I don't pick an actual act or band, but just a moment Iremember. I allow my creativity to take over."
Other aspects of the Festival operate in the same way. Whenideas are suggested, and executed, they are often incorporated intothe festival's tradition. The Art Barn began when two art studentsproposed an exhibition. The Dance Tent, for many the focal point ofthe festival, was an early suggestion as well.
Alan Vogel, who has helped out with construction since thebeginning, still supervises the erection of stages and commissionssmaller projects. Tommy Mann, who has been in charge of securitysince the third festival, supervises that crew.
"I don't think anyone in their wildest dreams thought we wouldget this big," Mann said over coffee a few weeks back. "It isliterally the biggest event in Tompkins County.
"Every year, I get there and I'm just blown away by theincredible volunteer effort," he added. "And after every year, howwell it turns out, it never ceases to amaze me."
Festival attendees
According to organizers, about 80 percent of festival-goers arerepeat visitors, a figure Puryear jokingly calls the "recidivismrate."
"There is a sense of ownership that doesn't really play a rolein most summer festivals," Romer said. As a result, festivalorganizers feel "like the audience are our bosses."
At the end of the day, the significance of a festival relies noton the caliber of its headliner but by the quality of itsconstituents. It is the milieu, not the marquee that makes agathering memorable; community rather than celebrity. Try toconjure up a mental image of Woodstock: for the most part the focuswould surely center on the crowd and not the stage.
"It's not really a concert for famous bands," Jordan Puryearsaid. "It's nice to have one or two, but it's really a certain typeof band, a certain type of music that makes sense."
A considered mix of the global and the local, the festivalelucidates connections between zydeco and reggae, hippies andTouregs. At GrassRoots, all music is dance music, and it's dancemusic from every nook and cranny of American culture. Dropping byTrumansburg this week answers the question not only what the nextAmerican music will sound like, but what community can feellike.
