Grand Point North, the music festival presented by Grace Potter and Higher Ground at Burlington’s Waterfront Park on September 17 and 18, announced the return of Grand Point Weird, a visual arts installation, to the weekend-long party, Grand Point Local, featuring local restaurants and food products, and the Reverb Eco Village, benefiting several local Vermont non-profits.  Organizers also announced that Soule Indomitable and River Whyless will perform the official after party at Nectar’s in downtown Burlington immediately following the festival Saturday night.

What a Night! As the crowd quickly filled Red Rocks Amphitheatre in anticipation of Greensky Bluegrass’ debut as a headliner there was brief rain delay.  In what was to be an evening of incredible music, the hometown Jamgrass heroes, Leftover Salmon took the stage, certain not to disappoint.

I have a moleskine book I keep in my pocket at concerts. My wife gave it to me as a gift years ago. She always gives the best gifts. This tattered little vestige to my musical history is used solely for notes at concerts I am reviewing. Nothing could better embody who I am, not just as a writer, but as a person. Every time I write in the book, it is a process. I have to take the now stretched out elastic rope off of the book, turn to the page marked with the connected bookmark and pick up where I left off.

The big news over the weekend at the 15^th installment of Floydfest was the unfortunate hospitalization and subsequent cancellation of headliner Gregg Allman’s Saturday night set.  But in true Floydfest fashion, the excellent talent evaluators of this year’s five-day festival, dubbed “Dreamweavin’,” had just the type of jam-band superheroes onsite to put together a dream replacement set.

While multi-PLATINUM selling singer/songwriter Dierks Bentley may be at the center of his No. One album BLACK (Capitol Records Nashville) and his biggest tour to date, he has long been known for embracing the community that surrounds him. With Behind BLACK: The Anatomy of the Album & Tour, Bentley introduces the group who had a behind-the-scenes hand in bringing it all to life; his family, management team, producers, collaborators, musicians, songwriters, record label executives, touring crew and industry supporters.