Merlefest

[bleugrasskid]

yahoo, NC is gonna be at merlefest and i get to go this saturday and see them! anyone else gonna be there?

[sunrizin]

Man...I wish I was going--it sounds like an awesome lineup. I was hoping they would play Bonnaroo again, but no such luck:confused: These festivals are a great place to gain fans...I caught them for the first time at Floydfest (VA) last summer and I've been hooked ever since!!
sunrizin

[Guesswho_Chick]

I had thought of going, but couldn't make it. Hopefully the lineup next year will be as good... :P Hope you, and everyone else there, has a blast though! I'll want full, detailed reviews on your returns :)

[Tinuviel Girl]

LOL

After Merlefest, which is in North Carolina, they have to go clear to California.

That's a long way.

[bleugrasskid]

yay, i got mike marshall and chris thile to sign my mandolin and sean and sara to sign my ticket!

[BtwnGreenGray]

So Merlefest rocked my freakin' face off!!!! I had soooooooo much fun! Def. was probably one of the best weekends of my life, no lie! I had never been and it's without a doubt something I will go to every year from now on!
I saw Chris play with Mike Marshall, and Mark O' Conner, Brian Sutton, and so many other amazing people. The actual NC show was great too because the crowd was soooo into it! So much fun, probably my favorite NC show that I've been to. Midnight Jam also rocked, I still can't believe the musicianship and talent of everyone there...insane!
Anyways, I have some pics from different things on my little photo album site...
Click Here To See Pictures (http://photos.yahoo.com/ilovenickelcreek2003)
I Hope you all enjoy and I hope that everyone that went had as much fun as I did. I encourage everyone to try to go next year if you didn't get to go this year because it's an amazing experience!
Did anyone record anything from any of the shows? I only have a few shows, but I'd be more than happy to trade with you! Just pm me or email me please!
Hope everyone that went made it safe and sound back home and I hope that you all enjoy the pictures! :D

~Courtney

[Brett]

Wow..Merlefest was freaking awesome!! I had really, really good seats for the Nickel Creek set, The Mark O'Connor-Chris Thile-Bryan Sutton-Frank Vignolia set, and the Darol Anger-Mike Marshall set at the Creekside stage. I talked to Mike after the Creekside set and I got a picture with him :D The Mark O'Connor set was amazing--oh, the improvs....:D I waited around for Chris (he was signing autographs for what seemed like 15 million little girls with mandolins and cd covers) and got a picture taken with him too. It was my first time meeting him and I thought he was remarkably nice, considering the mob of people around him. After that set I headed straight for the Hillside stage, where I sat until Nickel Creek finished their crazy, insane, awesome, wonderful performance. They had a VERY LARGE crowd, and they deserve it. After the show I waited for them to come out and greet the fans, which of course they did. I was behind a bunch of people just kind of standing around and Sean looked over and said to me Hey man, nice shirt. Before I HAD left for Merlefest, I made a bright red shirt boldly stating NICKEL FREAKING CREEK Sean walked over to me and we talked. I explained to him about the shirt and I said that it was just a start of what could be something of a signature Nickel creek thing, sort of like the next Rolling Stones tongue logo. I told him that I would gradually progress to making individual band member t-shirts, like SEAN FREAKING WATKINS. He laughed, I laughed, it was happy. If anyone saw the shirt let me know. If the trend catches on just remember little old me with a simple idea of a great t-shirt. So enough about the t-shirt... I talked to Chris again and we shared our thoughts on Wilco:D . He was also talking to some dude he apparently knew about stained glass....weird. Well, I'll post sme pics later...Have a good one, I did:D

Brett

[BtwnGreenGray]

I saw your shirt! :) It rocked...and I heard the girl who played fiddle with Mindy Smith say something to you about it!
Glad to see that someone else had such a good time!

[Elizabeth]

Originally posted by Tinuviel Girl
LOL

After Merlefest, which is in North Carolina, they have to go clear to California.

That's a long way.

Glad you all had a great time, still really wish I'd been able to go. I had it all planned, had a hotel booked, flights reserved and everything but then due to financial stuff I couldn't go in the end. [sob] I was going out to CA, the same as NC coz I wanted to go to the WFH! I soooooooo want to go to a WFH!!!

[QueenBee]

Hey Brett!
I saw your shirt! And I was like that's the guy Mindy pointed out earlier in the show! I saw you somewhere around the food tent...pretty cool...you're famous![party]

QueenBee

[Adyn]

Dang, I missed it! I was watching from the backstage area (well more like side stage) it was actually fun watching the audience too LOL But I didn't catch the tshirt, dang!

They did a great set, and of course Chris rocked at the Mark OConnor set... that was a serious mob scene aftewards! I know what you mean about the little girls! I was cracking up at all the little girls with starry eyes and stuff to sign, very cute. Chris had to take a cart to get anyhere more then 3 feet LOL, I think all those people trying to get to me would freak me out!

I didn't stick around after the creek set, that was a bit nuts for my taste. But the audience loved them and they put on a great show.

Here's some of the pics I got from Chris' set with Mark:

[Adyn]

more pics...

[Adyn]

more...

[Adyn]

last one...

[transformed]

holy crap, those pics make my mouth water...so clear...so well-composed...
i think my laptop moniter has a tendency to make pictures really alive and vibrant..
but still. good job :)

[etsugirl]

I'm new here. I was at Merlefest, too. You must have been standing right in front of me taking those pictures because that's the same angle (is that spelled right?) I had. Great pictures, by the way.

[Jimmie]

I'm surprised nobody has posted a Merlefest playlist yet. I didn't keep careful track of what they played, but I can offer a few comments. It seems that they managed to play most of their first Sugar Hill album, including Out Of The Woods, Tom Bombadill, Reasons Why, a rather uptempo new arrangement of When You Come Back Down, Sweet Afton, Cuckoo's Nest (featuring Mark's dancing), and The Fox, and perhaps more (I can't remember for sure). But I was surprised that they did so much from that CD - maybe they just felt that it was the right focus for Merlefest.

They did at least one song that I hadn't heard before (Rain). If I remember correctly, Chris played bazouki on that one. The only other new song that I noted was Jacksmith.

And they surprised me further by opening The Fox with an excerpt from Beck's Where It's At (you know, ...two turntables and a microphone...). They also threw Drone into the Fox as they've been doing for some months now. And at the end, Mark grabbed his banjo and played clawhammer style with them.

Another interesting highlight was the inclusion of Congress Reel (a traditional Irish fiddle tune) into the middle of Tom Bombadill. But that's not new - they've been doing it that way for a while now.

There was no electric guitar or drums on stage, so we didn't get Frontline or Evilene or anything else that demanded those instruments.

They also did Smoothie Song, Speak, Should've Known Better, This Side, and Sabra Girl.

Oh, yeah, one more thing - I don't remember exactly where, but at the end of one piece they threw in a quick version of Her Majesty from the Beatles. It was quite cute.

Anyone else keep any notes on their set?

[transformed]

is that congress reel? i thought somewhere people were calling it rings of fire or strings of fire i'm not sure...
i've wanted to learn it for quite a while

[BtwnGreenGray]

Here's the set list that I got from the stage after the show:

Scotch & Chocolate
Should've Known Better
WYCBD
Ode
Trouble
Rain
Smoothie
Speak
Sabra Girl
Ferdinand
Reasons
Sweet Afton
Cuckoo's
Out of the Woods
This Side
Tom
Jacksmith
Fox (Which also included the Beck cover of Where it's At)

Hope this helps!
I REALLY wish I could find someone who recorded some Merlefest stuff...

[Jimmie]

Originally posted by transformed
is that congress reel? i thought somewhere people were calling it rings of fire or strings of fire i'm not sure... i've wanted to learn it for quite a while

Here's a quick midi of the Congress Reel so you can compare for yourself:

http://www.banjer.com/midi/congress.mid

[Jimmie]

Here's a picture of them crowded around Mark and his Banjo:

[NCLuver333]

Hey Jimmie...Do you have anymore pictures? Also, could I use that one or anymore that you may have on my site www.geocities.com/nickel_creek333 ?

And Adyn, could I use your pictures on my site too?

:D

[Adyn]

Help yerself ;) They're marked with my website, and if you want to credit them use HeatherD, www.greenandgray.net

:D

[Jimmie]

Originally posted by NCLuver333
Hey Jimmie...Do you have anymore pictures? Also, could I use that one or anymore that you may have on my site www.geocities.com/nickel_creek333 ? Sure, I don't mind if my pictures get posted on Nickel Creek fan sites, as long as they get properly credited. The credit should read:

Jimmie Wilson, WRUW, Cleveland.

Here's another photo from Merlefest:

[Jimmie]

This one didn't turn out too bad:

[transformed]

hey thanks for the midi file! yeah, sounds like the same tune. yay i'm gonna learn that now. or soon :)

[Elizabeth]

[shock] [shock] [shock] Those pictures are all so good!!! Well done with those, I wish I could get mine to come out so perfectly. Do you have a camera with a long zoom?

[Jimmie]

Originally posted by Elizabeth
[shock] [shock] [shock] Those pictures are all so good!!! Well done with those, I wish I could get mine to come out so perfectly. Do you have a camera with a long zoom? Well, I have a typical 3mp digicam. It has a zoom that reaches the equivalent of about 210mm, which is a moderate telephoto. And since I'm operating at 3mp, I still have plenty of room to crop the photos for display on the web. In fact, even after cropping, I still had to reduce these images to about 1/3 of their original size - otherwise they'd have extended well off the page!

It certainly helps that the band was playing in direct sunlight. Good lighting makes a huge difference. And I did manipulate the gamma and the sharpness a bit before posting them.

Beyond that, I'd like to think that there is some skill involved <g>, but there's a bit of luck as well. One part of being a good photographer is to simply take a lot of pictures so that you can throw away all but the good ones!