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The three days of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival have ended and now that the banjos have been packed, the wine bottles tossed and billionaire Warren Hellman (major funder of The Bay Citizen as well as founder of Hardly Strictly) has finished writing checks for the huge event, media outlets are publishing roundups. Here is a roundup of the roundups, as many photographers and writers were on hand to chronicle the 600,000-person strong gathering:
Rolling Stone: Writer Benji Eisen has nothing but love for the gathering, quoting musicians who have nothing but love for Hardly Strictly ("'It's the coolest American festival that I've been to," Elbow's Guy Garvey told Rolling Stone backstage shortly before the band's headlining set on Sunday. "It reminds me a bit of Glastonbury – mainly the way Glastonbury used to be, actually. The vibe is really buzzing and really old school and everybody's really happy.'") and noting the inspired collaborations that the festival encourages —like David Rawlings, Conor Oberst and M.Ward playing together, and Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson. Also of note: it seems that the act that sold the most records over the weekend was Greensky Bluegrass —a frisky new group that is, as Eisen said, hardly strictly bluegrass.
SFist: The nimble SFist had a photo gallery up by midday yesterday -- including a shot of Hellman with Mayor Lee, a singing Dr. House (Hugh Laurie, whatever) and much more.
SFGate: The short story by Josh Zucker was accompanied with a much more expansive photo gallery, with 62 shots of the three days; it's easier to represent such an expansive event visually than with words. Look for the euphoric (possibly stoned) crowd shots alongside folks like Emmylou Harris and Robert Plant.
San Jose Mercury News: Music critic Jim Harrington got right to the point of the festival: "Everyone was just so darn happy." He praised the mix of old and new acts, although noted that some of the young bloods didn't really live up to the hype (which is a problem people like Earl Scruggs and Kris Kristofferson don't really have.) But one of the biggest gaps was noted right off the bat: the loss of festival favorite Hazel Dickens, who died this past year.
© The Bay Citizen, 2012
h. brown
He's a financial predator,
He wore a, 'No on D' sticker on front of his jacket when he performed. What no one except the Chronicle (surprise, surprise, surprise) has mentioned is that Warren Hellman has gotten millions from the Retirement Board to invest. Not so much lately so what does he do? He sponsors Prop C which has a provision changing the composition of the Retirement Board (they choose who to give the money to) ... Hellman lobbied to change the membership of the Board from 4 electeds (all voters are retirees) and 3 mayoral appointees to 3 delecteds, 3 mayoral appointees and the Controller. Would you be surprised that he carries the Controller around in his hip pocket?
Slavery is still very much alive in this world and Warren Hellman is in the center of the slave trade. He invests trillion (yes, not billions) in business plans operating in the third world which profit from cheap labor held under the boots of brutal dictators whom his buddies Feinstein and Pelosi keep in power.
I do like the music but this man is no folksie hero. He's a cunning exploiter of child slave labor.
Go Niners!
h.
Steve Heilig
Here's one more writeup, respectfully offered (but some of my readers did not seem to 'get' the 'socialist' joke):
http://blog.sfgate.com/sheilig/2011/10/03/hardly-strictly-everything-musical-socialism-at-its-best/
Lemoore
I don't know the politics behind Hellman, so if there's any dirt it's very well covered. All I surmise is that San Francisco loves free things and loves people who offer free things, no questions asked. Hellman is obviously very good at that and there's hardly a way anybody will slam the dude and if there's any dissension about him or HSBG it's quelled. Even the Bay Guardian loves this guy.
Next up to love: Blue Angels. SF loves free!