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Bele Chere
Jul. 27th, 2009 05:45 pmWell, I just figured out something. One of my gripes with LJ, that I liked about Facebook was the fact that I didn't have to resize pictures, edit, etc. etc., save them to Photobucket, and THEN post them on LJ. So, by clicking "insert image", I don't have to do all that? Well, lah dee dah. And here I thought I knew everything.
(Edit: That took forEVAR. I think Photobucket might possibly be quicker, rawr. AND you have to click on them to make them bigger??)
So, anyway, this weekend![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nonspecific and I headed up to Asheville, NC for the Bele Chere Festival. I'd heard about it for years, but had never gone. I've got to say, it was fantastic. One of my issues with a lot of festivals is that, even though there's usually something that interests me there (oh, like food?) there's just usually not that much. I go to the Woolly Worm Festival to hang out with my family and see woolly worms racing, and I go to the Apple Festival in Erwin because, well, it's Erwin and I know everyone there.
But Bele Chere was totally different. For one thing, it was HUGE. An estimation of 300,000 to 350,000 people. Secondly, the booths, displays, shows and such were really kind of up my alley. For those who don't know about Asheville, for a southern city, it's really pretty progressive. Some might call it "hippie central" and there are certainly a lot of them there. Everywhere you walked, patchoulli and clove cigarettes permeated the air. But it's a NICE town. Very peaceful, artsy, music everywhere. And to have crammed that many people into one space, there were seriously no problems. Well, the fundevangelists were raising hell (literally) and condemning the homosecktsuals, at which point the crowd started chanting "love not hate!" which made me very happy. But 99% of the attractions were geared toward a much more, shall we say "open-minded" crowd.
On Friday night we saw Dar Williams (girl-with-guitar pop), whom I was not familiar with. She had a good voice, although I could barely see the stage for the crowd. Afterwards we mosied on over to Cracker, which was the act I really wanted to see. They sounded (and looked) great. Saturday morning, we got up and checked out Christabel and the Jons from Knoxville. There was a surprisingly large Tennessee faction there, checking out her jazzy '40s style pop. After that, we walked around, ate, checked out the booths, played some bongos and people-watched. I saw some dogs humping and there's a picture of my reaction (although sadly, no picture of the promiscuous dogs.) Even the dogs are gay in Asheville, as I'm pretty sure they were both boys. Later in the day, we checked out Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band, also from Knoxville. I'd heard of these guys for years and had always wondered if they were for real. I had no idea what kind of music they played, and thought they might be sort of a B-52s party band. Nooooo... They're funky funkadelic funk. Like straight-up funk and they rocked out. During the show, some kids brought over those really cool weighted hula hoops and I got up to hoop a bit to the music.
After the Booty Band, we headed over for the headliners, Old 97's, who also put on a rockin' good show. And there were more hula hoops to be had! So I hooped it up a bit more. And I had to giveaceofkittens props for her taste in men. Rhett Miller from Old 97's is a fine, fine specimen of man.
On that note, here. Have some pictures.
Did you know I knew Spiderman?
( Moar. )
(Edit: That took forEVAR. I think Photobucket might possibly be quicker, rawr. AND you have to click on them to make them bigger??)
So, anyway, this weekend
nonspecific and I headed up to Asheville, NC for the Bele Chere Festival. I'd heard about it for years, but had never gone. I've got to say, it was fantastic. One of my issues with a lot of festivals is that, even though there's usually something that interests me there (oh, like food?) there's just usually not that much. I go to the Woolly Worm Festival to hang out with my family and see woolly worms racing, and I go to the Apple Festival in Erwin because, well, it's Erwin and I know everyone there.But Bele Chere was totally different. For one thing, it was HUGE. An estimation of 300,000 to 350,000 people. Secondly, the booths, displays, shows and such were really kind of up my alley. For those who don't know about Asheville, for a southern city, it's really pretty progressive. Some might call it "hippie central" and there are certainly a lot of them there. Everywhere you walked, patchoulli and clove cigarettes permeated the air. But it's a NICE town. Very peaceful, artsy, music everywhere. And to have crammed that many people into one space, there were seriously no problems. Well, the fundevangelists were raising hell (literally) and condemning the homosecktsuals, at which point the crowd started chanting "love not hate!" which made me very happy. But 99% of the attractions were geared toward a much more, shall we say "open-minded" crowd.
On Friday night we saw Dar Williams (girl-with-guitar pop), whom I was not familiar with. She had a good voice, although I could barely see the stage for the crowd. Afterwards we mosied on over to Cracker, which was the act I really wanted to see. They sounded (and looked) great. Saturday morning, we got up and checked out Christabel and the Jons from Knoxville. There was a surprisingly large Tennessee faction there, checking out her jazzy '40s style pop. After that, we walked around, ate, checked out the booths, played some bongos and people-watched. I saw some dogs humping and there's a picture of my reaction (although sadly, no picture of the promiscuous dogs.) Even the dogs are gay in Asheville, as I'm pretty sure they were both boys. Later in the day, we checked out Yo Mama's Big Fat Booty Band, also from Knoxville. I'd heard of these guys for years and had always wondered if they were for real. I had no idea what kind of music they played, and thought they might be sort of a B-52s party band. Nooooo... They're funky funkadelic funk. Like straight-up funk and they rocked out. During the show, some kids brought over those really cool weighted hula hoops and I got up to hoop a bit to the music.
After the Booty Band, we headed over for the headliners, Old 97's, who also put on a rockin' good show. And there were more hula hoops to be had! So I hooped it up a bit more. And I had to give
aceofkittens props for her taste in men. Rhett Miller from Old 97's is a fine, fine specimen of man. On that note, here. Have some pictures.
Did you know I knew Spiderman?
( Moar. )
