Our Huckleberry View in a nutshell:
Music 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵
Sound 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵
Lighting 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵
Layout 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵
Vibe 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵
Food 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵
Overall 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵 🎵
We are going to try to make a habit of returning to a festival each year to take another look after having experienced it once to see if our Huckleberry View improves, takes a nose dive, or basically remains the same. We knew last year that we would have to return to Green Mountain Bluegrass and Roots Festival since we missed out on the camping experience and it looked like a whole different vibe out there. And, golly gee willikers, it was!
Day 1
Well, we started off with a bang. Our GPS guided us and our RV through the shortest route…right to the “authorized access only” entrance. And, it was going to be a trick to turn around. Some festival goers coming out from that area said…oh no, you are set…it says Generator Camping. Well, we have no generator, but maybe for some reason campers are authorized? Ha. Not. But, we determined it was best to ask for forgiveness than to try to turn around. So as we entered, we came clean to anyone and everyone. And anyone and everyone working here were volunteers, super nice, and trusting. So, we found a primo camping spot as directed by the camp spot volunteer who set us up right next to him…with a warning as we were just about to back in that…oh yea…the kids across from you said they will be loud. No fear…our phones have great bedroom fans. We were in.
We ran through the basic necessities to establish residency then went on our apology tour. We walked over towards Riley Rink, where a quick discussion with the camp check-in spot person told us we were the 2nd folks to do this (we wiped our sweat off our brows) and we were all good. They told us to just go up to the Rink, confess our sins, and grab a festival wristband as well as a camping wristband. So we did. And all was forgiven. We will just pretend that we didn’t just skip a long line of campers waiting to check-in through the main entrance. Disclaimer: A Huckleberry View does not condone using the “authorized access only” entrance under any circumstances. We bow our heads in shame and will never do that again.
We returned to our weekend home, set up the RV, happy to see that our inverter in the camper was all good and our off-grid battery power was working.
Just a note, as we sit here writing this, the festival is going on, but we are in the campground listening to folks jamming in their own camp spot. This is a pervasive theme.
Back to Thursday…
Once we were set up we decided to take a walk to the center of Manchester to grab a couple of things to round out our food supply. After a few twists and turns and a couple of wrong pathways, we finally made it. If you take the recreation path leading right from the Rink, it will bring you right to town…just make sure you take a left after all the recreation fields…do not go straight to the track.
We grabbed our groceries after a stop at Lost Marble Brewery for a beer and a couple of wings. Bikes here would have been great to make all of this go a bit quicker, but we needed to stretch our legs, so it was all good. It’s just shy of a 2 mile walk to Shaw’s.
We returned, then made our way to the festival grounds. We re-familiarized ourselves with the area, listened to some tunes from M’gonigle (love the Harry Potter vibe), and then went back to the campsite to round up some dinner. Then back to the festival to listen to Mountain Grass Unit. How cool was it to be watching after dark with the soft lighting. All music on Thursday was performed on the small Shady Grove Tent stage making it a very intimate experience…though we had to watch from the outside of the tent overlooking all those seated under it. It was absolutely fine. This venue is definitely a place where you get here early, set up your chair where you want it for the weekend, and share it with others when you are not using it. Everyone was using their chairs under the Tent at this point. You actually could not leave your chairs there over night as in the morning there would be yoga and then dance lessons, but you could set up for a shady spot to watch the performance on the main stage from 11-6 Friday through Sunday (actually starting at 10 am on Sunday…no dance lessons). We would definitely catch MGU again Friday night when they hit the main stage.
We made a quick return to the camper in between sets, but rather than going back to watch the Foghorn String Band, we hung with our friendly volunteer neighbor who happened to also play the mandolin and with his friend the guitar player and his other non-musician friend (yea, we get you…). Before we knew it, we were dug in, having a raging good time, joined Nate, the mandolin player, after he went across our street (Peru St, by the way) to join the 20-somethings who were singing and playing guitar, followed quickly by his guitar friend and us. Eventually non-musician friend was intrigued and made his way over. What a blast. We non-musician types bowed out at some point…we had no idea what time it was. And we listened to them for a while from the comfort of beneath our awning until we knew we had to hit the hay if we were going to try to join in on yoga in the morning. And by the way, the noisy kids Nate warned us about? Those 20-something musicians. So that “noise” was just music and that was not a bad thing to go to sleep to. And that was a wrap for Day 1.
Day 2
Yoga with Glow. We made it in time and found a spot under the Shady Grove Tent. Whoa. What a way to start the day. One hour of moving and stretching with a few downward dogs and sun salutations and we were ready for a new day. We took a stroll to find a hardware store. Well, we took a wrong turn and ended up at Lola Woodfire and had crafted cocktails and tzatziki with pita for a lunch appetizer. It’s salad for dinner since we never found the hardware store and a new propane tank for the portable stove.
Back at the camp, we were never far from music. We had a pretty primo camping spot here on Peru St. We were camping among the volunteers and most of them were musicians. We listened to live music ALL.DAY.LONG. It was like a dream. We are listening to some Indigo Girls right now as we write this. And at this time on Day 2 we were writing about Day 1. It is a perfect place for us to catch up on some Huckleberry View work, well, because life gets in the way.
So we had that salad for dinner and then headed to the festival grounds to watch Lindsay Lou. Such a lovely voice and also seems to be a lovely human being. From what we were gathering, she also does collabs with other artists…she was scheduled for a set at tonight’s Lamplighter Stage “with friends.” She goes on at 12:30 a.m. Let it be said…we were not going to make it to 12:30. Getting up for 9:00 am yoga this morning was going to hit at like midnight.
After a brief sojourn back at camp, we ventured back to catch Railroad Earth. This was a full on band. Drums, keyboard with the obligatory fiddle and banjo. The lead singer was sporting a sling on his left arm. He sounded great but it was obvious he didn’t know what to do with himself. He admitted later that he was usually up there with a guitar but, as reported on social media, he may have smashed his hand in a log splitter. Only a bluegrass artist…. In any case, they were topnotch.
Then we caught Mountain Grass Unit on the main stage this time. We repeat…they were so fun! They sounded great, were awesome musicians and played to the crowd so well. They were excellent entertainers.
After the festival, we went for a quick attitude adjustment before wandering down Lamplighter Lane to the Lamplighter Stage at about 11:20 p.m. If we weren’t giving this place 5 stars for lighting before, this was really over the top. It was quite more than we expected after wandering around here last year during the daytime. We came upon a sea of chairs but we cuddled ourselves right behind the last row of established seats pretty much center stage. What an intimate experience. Caitlin Canty is a native Vermont folk singer and she was perfect. She performed with her husband Noah Pikelny and they were magical. She performed with another couple of dudes and we were sure folks knew who they were. We did not.
As the end of Caitlin’s set approached, we opted to give our primo spot to whomever was behind us. And we ventured back to the camp. It was after midnight and our coach was about to turn into a pumpkin. We could hear perfectly well from our camp spot…did we mention we had a primo spot? And we nodded off to the music.
What did we miss? Lindsay’s Lou’s set. From what our neighbor, Nate, told us, her one-year old would not go to sleep and was with the traveling nanny at the side of the stage. Finally Lindsay wrapped her babe in a sling and continued her performance, making both her baby and her fans happy. Sweet dreams, baby Lou.
Day 3
Since we were way up past our bedtime last night, we took it slow in the morning and missed Yoga with Glow. We woke up to various jam sessions already starting up around the campground as well as some individuals tuning up for their evening “performances”.
We wandered back into town for some lunch and had a great bite to eat at Union Underground. We really had enjoyed being so close to town. It’s funny that folks we had spoken with while at the restaurants we visited really had no idea the festival was going on…right in their backyard!
We got back to the Festival in time to catch Noah Pikelny and Stuart Duncan’s set. After seeing Noah with his wife, Caitlin, last night, we wanted to make sure to see his own performance. They had some guitar and fiddle action going and it was great music to listen to and just hang.
We wandered around and caught a great little band at the pop up stage by the food vendors. While there, we finally grabbed some dinner…there is such a great variety for such a small festival. From ice cream to crepes, a new Salad Saloon, dumplings, Acai bowls and sandwiches, a craft cocktail bar and local, organic wood-fired pizza.
Also, the artisan vendors here were so talented! Colette personally loved the clothing and like last year, picked up a beautiful dress as well as a super cool tank top from two different vendors. Mike even grabbed a couple of super cool shirts. And the festival had a variety of their own offerings…t-shirts, tank tops, metal cups and even playing cards!
We ended the night listening to Watchouse who are regulars at the festival. We’ve seen them on posters going back to 2022. They are such a talented group of musicians. The audience was filled with folks dancing and laughing and just enjoying life.
It was a beautiful night and the lighting around the stage was fantastic. The pine trees surrounding the stage were used as a backdrop for a display of lights featuring varying scenes from nature. It was just incredible.
We returned to to our RV and, as we have become accustomed to, fell asleep to more campground music.
Day 4
Well, there really wasn’t much of a Day 4 for us. We had places to go and people to meet so had to bag out of the Sunday festivities. We gave our neighbor friends big hugs goodbye, packed up our stuff, and headed out of the grounds, along with others that had to get home in time for their own obligations. And we made sure to leave through the front door as opposed to sneaking out the back.
Bottom line, we do not listen to bluegrass music on a regular basis, but once a year we can be totally into it. So even if you are not a fan of roots music, you will be a fan of this festival, and you MUST camp here. So get on the website early, even before there is a line up (because, honestly, we wouldn’t know who most of these folks performing would be anyway) and secure a camping spot. And if you do love bluegrass, consider volunteering. You will be in great company, will meet great people, and can have a great camping spot like us back with the rest of the volunteers. Whether volunteering or just being part of the scene, go have yourselves one helluva time in our beautiful home state of Vermont.