Brightest Young Things

all words and photos: Pepper Watkins

This past weekend, the 6th annual Watermelon Park Fest continued its tradition of bringing world-class bluegrass and acoustic music to the banks of the Shenandoah River just outside Berryville, Virginia. Sprang from a desire by three musician friends to revive the venue’s great concerts of the 1960s and 1970s, Watermelon Park Fest is a 3-day carnival of music, camping, and sweet potato fries—all a tribute to the great acts (including the likes of Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys) that confirmed the grassy river bottom as hallowed ground for bluegrass and country music.

This year’s festival was headlined by the Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band and multi-instrumentalist Tim O’Brien, who were joined by such diverse acts as flatpicking virtuouso and Chester A. Arthur doppelganger Larry Keel & Natural Bridge, Randy Waller & The Country Gentlemen, Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole, fiddler Bruce Molsky, gygpsy jazz septet The Woodshedders, Furnace Mountain, Danny Knicely’s Bluegrass and Beyond, Walker’s Run, Taarka and a host of others.

Although much of Saturday was marred by a persistent rain, enthusiastic festival goers deployed rain gear and picnic tents to keep dry near the main stage, where the bands delivered consistently stunning performances despite the weather (and its instrument-detuning propensities).

Highlights of Peter Rowan’s marathon set included classics Midnight Moonlight, Panama Red, and The Walls of Time, each one stretched and embellished with superlative vocal harmony, instrumental breaks, and tight arrangement. Tim O’Brien’s excellent set explored more traditional material, exploiting twin fiddles and fellow multi-instrumentalist Danny Knicely to hot-rod the already energetic song list. Ensembles like Cedric Watson, the Woodshedders, Taarka, Larry Keel, Walker's Run and Furnace Mountain wove a complex soundscape indexing some of the most innovative and masterful acoustic music being played anywhere today.

Beyond the headlining acts, guitar and mandolin picking competitions (both of which rewarded winners with hand-made instruments) and a band competition heightened anticipation and kept audiences rapt. One of the most important characters in the weekend’s cast was Watermelon Park itself, a long sliver of land bound to the east by the serpentine Shenandoah River, and packed to the edges with vendors, campers, tents, RVs, and latenight campfire jams.

A little larger and a little cooler every year, Watermelon Park Fest has quickly become a marquee name in the already outstanding Virginia festival circuit. Located 60 miles west of Washington DC, adjacent to Appalachian Trail, and near Skyline Drive, the Fest is a great early fall getaway from DC and an opportunity to see the concentrated best of what Virginia has to offer.

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