A big heart felt thank you to Peter Shapiro and Dave Frey, and all the staff and volunteers who helped to make Lockn’ Festival 2016 the best one yet! The music brings the love out of us all and flowing into the open air like the chem-trails! It's not as easy to see, but it sure is easy to feel and fun to capture. Thank you, Nelson County for opening your community to our community for this fantastic experience.

Saturday at Lockn’ was a beautiful sigh between Phish’s weekend bracketing headlining sets.  And the sigh is this: the scene is in a great place now. With the music of the Grateful Dead as a sustaining anchor, jam, electronic music, Americana, and Indie bands are forging a great new collective chapter in authentic, improvised American music.

LOCKN' is excited to announce additions to an already stellar lineup, including EOTO, Hard Working Americans, Circles Around the Sun, Doobie Decibel System, Moon Taxi, Garcia's Forest and Donna the Buffalo. EOTO features members of The String Cheese Incident, Hard Working Americans includes members of Widespread Panic and Chris Robinson Brotherhood, and Doobie Decibel System has Jay Lane (Ratdog, Primus), Jason Crosby (Phil Lesh & Friends) and Dan Leibowitz (ALO, Phil Lesh & Friends) in the band.

Lockn' is very proud to announce the lineup for its fourth annual event. Phish will be making its first appearance at the festival with a two-night, four-set headlining slot on the Friday and Sunday of the weekend. This will mark the band's only festival performance in 2016. Ween, who are fresh off three reunion shows in Broomfield, CO that sold out instantly, will perform right before Phish on the Friday night. Another Lockn' first timer, the beloved My Morning Jacket will headline on the Saturday night.

“Wake up. Time to go to church,” urges Bill to his partner Jody the Jedi, my next door neighbors at camp. “I missed the show last year, and it’s not happening again.”

The Bowl stage is smaller and closer to the ground, which is convenient when you are in the Pit with no stepladder. It is more intimate than the Oak and Ridge stages.

The rain started early Saturday morning, just after the Umphrey‘s McGee set closed up shop. That dope encore was legit. The intermittent downpours left over 5 inches of rain in their wake on the fields of Oakridge. Personally, my tent was soaked. The air mattress was now officially a floatation device in the wonderfully glassy sea that previously was the tent floor.

I awoke Friday to the sounds of car horns honking at 6 o’clock sharp, as the initial Lockn’ Festival attendees were allowed entrance. We all understand the excitement and the urge to share it with the world, but stealing the rarest and most desirable of festival resources is just uncompassionate. A little rudeness will not keep me from “Feeling Alright.” Internal monologue starts, “And so Lockn’ begins. Get up@!

A microburst came through Arrington, VA Wednesday afternoon, leveling all the tents and structures at Oak Ridge Farm. Staff members were thrown through the air by walls of wind gusting over 70 miles an hour.  The pummeling of Oak Ridge lasted 10 minutes and delayed Lockn’s opening until today. A big heart-felt thank you and much respect goes out to all the staff that worked overtime to rebuild the festival grounds.