The tenth annual North Carolina Folk Festival is in the books as I write this. Typically there are three days of music that stretch from Friday to Sunday on multiple stages all over the downtown area. I have been to quite a few of these festivals at this point sometimes making it to all three days to see various bands. This year I made it to one day and night and saw most of what I wanted to see.
There was a bit of a break from the afternoon until the headliner show featuring the Los Lonely Boys. I spent some time over at the operations area where my brother Brian was flying drones over the area recording video and photos for future setups and crowd management. Brian has done this for several years for this festival and it is always cool to chill a bit in his GMC classic RV on site and get some rest from pounding the pavement up and down the streets. After a while I made my way over to the food trucks to get some nice Mexican tacos and it wasn’t long before I was walking around with my old friend James Ellis having a pint over at the local Tap Room right off the vendor area. I walked in and the solo artist was playing Steely Dan followed by a Lukas Nelson tune and I knew I was in the right place. After a local brown nut ale in a “go cup” we headed out to check out more action on the streets.
Los Lonely Boys were scheduled for 9:30 PM on the City Stage. I arrived around 8:30 to get a good location to watch the show even though I knew I would likely be standing for a while. The band on the stage in front of the band was playing very loud and had the crowd engaged…The Psycodelics just would not leave! In fact they kept getting applause and they kept repeating the ending of their show over and over. After about ten minutes of this I was getting impatient. Finally they stopped and the crowd headed to the bathrooms and drink stands. I made my way to the front of the stage. There I stood behind a three hundred plus pound man with a large brim hat on. I recognized him from previous festivals and I knew this was not going to go well. It was one of those nights where you get second row center and the only seven foot drunk guy who attends one show a year and continuously waves his arms despite all the people who are behind him. I have been there done that more than once. The crowd started filling in behind me and it was getting tighter. The clock was ticking. The stage crew looked like they were in the Arctic Circle. They were acting like nothing was going to happen until Sunday. To lay this out…this band is a trio with the drums wheeled out on a riser. Thee is a bass rig and a guitar amp. Add in a few vocal microphones and you are ready to play. After what appeared to be a road crew member playing bass and guitar trying to impress the crowd with a few random chords and yelling into the vocal mikes for close to an hour we were almost ready to go. But then he was back with a roll of grey duct tape taping cords down and who knows what up on the stage. It was like he was taping the whole stage. It was now well after 10:15 and the show was scheduled from 9:30-10:30. Still no band and my feet are starting to scream after almost two hours of standing in one place with no rail. I only say that for humor as I know how to go sit in the back if I wanted to. Not gonna’ happen.
Before the show started my phone db meter was showing around 90 db for the crowd noise. It was a very large crowd. I had my etymotic earplugs https://www.etymotic.com/hearing-protection/ which lowered the db level about 20 db. This was not enough to safely make it through the show. The db level during the first several songs was between 110 and 120 db! By 45 minutes I made my way out of the very tight crowd that was standing for about 30 feet behind me. I had to give my ears a rest. My Apple Watch was thumping my arm to clear the area. It kept giving me warnings in yellow text…TOO LOUD! After decades of live music and working on stages I am already wearing hearing aids to help my tinnitus and hearing loss. I am fine as long as I stay clear of loud environments for too long. My hearing aids do help but you can only take a little exposure at this level especially standing close to a large sub woofer. Ask me how I know.
To sum it up it was a fine show although many of the stages were playing too loud. I feel for most of the crowd as I saw virtually zero hearing protection. I am sure some people went home and could not hear anything for a while. This is 2024. Bands are not better when they play loud. If you want to use the excuse of making the sound loud enough for the back of the tent put the volume in the PA speakers above the crowd and turn down the stage amplification. There is no need to damage hearing while having a good time. Finally someone needs to look at why setting a stage takes so long. I am sure there is a reason someone has but I can’t think of many. I have worked on stages for days and started 40 bands to cell phone time without missing a beat. If you have the right crew and management it can be done.
I had fun watching live music and taking in the late Summer sun. I only document what I see as improvements not as complaints because I had a choice of whether to be there or not. I did make a donation that was matched before I left. I hope the Folk Festival makes it back next year figures out where the volume knob is. See ya down the road.