Fall bluegrass festivals are usually pretty perfect no matter where you are. There's that cool heaviness in the air and the crisp laughter of folks coming together to enjoy the natural sound of bluegrass. This year's Hillberry Music Festival in Eureka Springs, AR was no exception. The stellar lineup and fantastic scenery compelled people from all over the U.S. to travel to Arkansas for a weekend of music and meaningful experiences.

In just a few days, folks will be celebrating music, friends and the making of memories at The Farm in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. At the beginning of a beautiful Arkansas fall, situated within mountains constructed of quartz and limestone, and healing springs…a wonderful small festival will echo through the hillsides. Event organizers, Railroad Earth and Deadhead Productions, will welcome new bands and old friends to another surely great Hillberry Festival.

Catskill Chill is a music festival held towards the end of the summer music festival season. Most people are burnt out, broke, or unable to take anymore time off to attend another music festival. If you had an excuse for why you couldn’t attend this year’s Catskill Chill at New Minglewood, you won’t be making those same excuses next year after learning about their extremely successful transition to a new campground.

The felt moment of immediate experience has been lost. Perhaps we have given it away by not accessing it. Perhaps it was robbed by this mainstream media/cereal box religion/consumer culture. Music festivals help us drop out of the noisy centralized confines of the Matrix and fall into the magic of experience; to revel in the full richness of the moment. It is a domain of feeling, and at best it is a vector of love, light, good vibrations and community.

Kalamazoo, Michigan quintet Greensky Bluegrass announced the release of their anticipated new album Shouted, Written Down & Quoted, due out on September 23^rd via the band’s own Big Blue Zoo Records/Thirty Tigers.

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.

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.