Humboldt Folklife Festival

We headed up to Blue Lake, a few miles East of Arcata for the Humboldt Folklife Festival. This was a small festival in downtown Blue Lake. It's a tiny town. The old IOOF hall is now the Del Arte School. They have an amphitheater in back which was the main stage. There was another stage on the street out front. The groups we heard were good to excellent. They seem to have a really strong folk music community in the area. There were workshops on playing music, singing and dance. Really a nice festival which we'll probably return to.


The town of Blue Lake. The early crowd.


Later in the day the crowd picked up, in a small town way.


Left above Sari Baker and her trio. Very melodic voice. Her music is described as "eclectic, heartfelt, evocative folk". (Listen to Sari 403k) On the right, the group Old Dog. Their music is described as "not quite bluegrass" (Listen to Old Dog 468k)


Lila Nelson was one of the MC's but did one song with the Group The Acoustic Rubberneckers. She does a radio show for KHUM. She has a cute smile but I didn't get it. The Rubberneckers are described as "Blue Lake's own alt-country band". (Listen to Lila 518k) The Devil's Dream Stringband played mostly instrumentals. Described as "old timey fiddle tunes and ballads". (Listen to The Devil's Dream Stringband 341k)

We visited the Blue Lake Casino. Big but not good. Both Dawn and Lou had their money ripped off by defective slot machines. Not lost but actually taken for nothing. Can't be a coincidence. Indian Casinos, in our experience, don't pay out much compared to Nevada but at least they usually let you think that you might win.

We returned about 7pm and had some of Dawn's wonderful stew which she started in the crockpot before we left.