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As a light breeze blew and the grass shrank back like vampires from the hellish St. Louis sun, music fans congregated in Forest Park to experience the first ever LouFest music festival.
Sponsored mostly by local companies and aiming to leave the smallest carbon footprint possible for such a large event, LouFest was an ambitious attempt that leapt high over the bar it set for itself.
For a first-time festival, or really for any festival of similar size, the lineup of LouFest was phenomenal. Local acts, such as So Many Dynamos and Gentlemen Auction House, held their own, while visiting acts drew crowds of fans and strangers alike.
The surprise hit of the festival was Carolina Chocolate Drops, who twanged their down-home folk to the sweaty crowd, employing the banjo, fiddle, guitar, kazoo, jug and bones. Their fast-plucking bluegrass style fit perfectly with the beating sun and flitting insects to create the aura of a thick, country afternoon from years past. During most of the shows, the audience spread out across the field, but from the first sweet pluck of the banjo the crowd immediately seemed magnetized to Carolina Chocolate Drops, crushing against each other to get as close to the sunny, smiling musicians as possible.
The highlight of the festival was Jeff Tweedy's Sunday night solo set. Armed only with an acoustic guitar, Tweedy spilled his longing, loving melodies just as the sun sank, on a day Mayor Francis Slay apparently named "Jeff Tweedy Day." It was shocking (and, at the same time, not shocking at all) how well Wilco's more dissonant and foot-stomping songs held up under Tweedy's calm, gentle strumming. The crowd was mesmerized by Tweedy's restrained passion, many lying back on the cooling grass to bask in the beautiful Mississippi River sorrow of his melodies.
One of the more disappointing acts of the festival was the '60s-inspired pop band She & Him, which is made up of actress Zooey Deschanel and musician M. Ward. Though the band played energetically, and Deschanel's melodies are endearingly catchy, their music is too one-dimensional to fill out an entire set. Billed as the final headliner of the festival and preceded by Tweedy's entrancing set and The Fruit Bats powerful folk rock splendor before that, She & Him simply could not keep its head above the deep water the previous acts dove into.
The night before, Built to Spill, a personal favorite, split the setting sun with singer Dug's pointed nasal wail as well as the rest of the band's timed melodic jams. Their invigorating show, along with a strong performance from Titus Andronicus earlier in the day, sealed the biodegradable package for LouFest.
With such a spacious venue as Forest Park, LouFest could not possibly have been cramped, but it used the space well, lining the dry grass with little neighborhoods of tents providing information on green initiatives, local restaurant stands and beverage tents draining entire kegs of Schlafly products faster than a patron could finish a single pint.
The festival was set up with two opposing stages so there was little downtime between acts, but with only a single act performing at any time. The only downside to this was obtrusive sound checks, which were nothing compared to the aggressive dissonance most festivals of similar size experience where multiple acts perform at once.
One of the most shocking aesthetic features of the festival was the ground. Unlike most festivals, which by the end of the event looks like a frat house on Sunday morning, the ground at LouFest was almost completely devoid of trash. Disposable items sold at the festival were either recyclable or compostable, and volunteers took care to keep waste in its home. Compared to the environmentally-friendly setup of LouFest, other music festivals now look like the equivalent of stuffing a bald eagle in an exhaust pipe.
For any festival, this outcome would have been nearly perfect. For a first-time festival, with mostly local sponsors, the outcome was mind-blowing. Within a few years, if the trend continues, LouFest will be the premiere music festival of the Midwest.
My only advice for next year: Bring a parasol.
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