The South will rise again

The South will rise again!! Tonight was a double bill of southern rock with Drive-By Truckers and Lynyrd Skynyrd both hitting different Bluesfest stages at the same time. Just our luck, but we had a plan - watch most of the Drive-By Truckers, followed by some Black Mountain and then whip over to the main stage for Skynyrd's Freebird encore. [insert beer and pee breaks randomly as required]

I swung by Rick's house and picked him up around 4:30 so we could relax a bit and check out some of the afternoon acts. We caught a few tracks from Louisiana Red and then over to the Rogers Stage for Otis Taylor. Otis was playing with his daughter Cassie on bass and a real high energy girl (Anne Harris) doing a mix of yoga and tai chi while wailing on fiddle. Meanwhile Otis flipped between banjo, electric guitar, and harmonica. Great show despite the short downpour.




Then it was back to the Subway Stage for David Lindley who mastered the stage with some lap guitar and witty banter. His last song, Meth Lab Boyfriend, was a hilarious hit with the fans. There's still some uncertainty as to whether or not David was the main character of that track or simply the narrator.



After Lindley left the stage we slowly muscled out some of the wankers in chairs (don't even get me started on this) to place ourselves in the second row. Great location to check out DBTs three axe attack and snap off a few pics.




They kicked ass and I only wish I could have stayed for the whole show but dang-it-all there were other stages calling us over.

Black Mountain was on the Black Sheep Stage and was the first to draw us in. Psychedelic guitar and wailing vocals. Sweet but before we knew it they were into their last song of the night.



We stepped knee deep into Skynyrd rocking out Sweet Home Alabama southern sytle. Perfect timing. They wandered off stage and the fans went nuts chanting Freebird, lighters (and cells) in air. The irony was not lost on us - seriously how often do you get to chant Freebird to Lynyrd Skynyrd as they step back out on stage to actually play Freebird as their grand finale 20 minute encore? Awesome.