Now that MerleFest, presented by Window World, is only one week away, annual festival-goers have surely begun planning their weekends. For those who have not, however, here are five sure-to-be epic experiences that shouldn’t be missed. Make a note or two and join a welcoming legion of music fans in Wilkesboro, N.C., from April 25th to 28th at MerleFest.

The Third Annual "Suwannee Spring Reunion” bluegrass music festival kicked off on Thursday, March, 21st in Live Oak, Florida. Located on the grounds of "The Spirit Of The Suwannee Music Park" located in Northern Florida, between Tallahassee and Jacksonville, just south of the Georgia border.

Sam Bush Band, Steep Canyon Rangers, Sierra Hull and Ghost Light are among the final list of bands announced for the 11th annual Rooster Walk Music & Arts Festival. Other new additions include:  The Steel Wheels, The Black Lillies, ‘Yarn Morrison’ (Yarn’s tribute to Van Morrison), Runaway Gin, The Trongone Band, Sanctum Sully, Disco Risqué, Kate Rhudy, Adar, The Folly, Chamomile & Whiskey, Prosperity’s Folly, The Drove, and MHC Praise Band.

For decades the onset of Spring meant gathering at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida for a weekend of fun, family, Bluegrass and string music. A beloved tradition continues as the picturesque grounds play host to a new take on a classic family-friendly gathering with the 3rd Annual Suwannee Spring Reunion taking place Thursday through Sunday, March 21-24, 2019.

A story with a head wound is always a good story. This story has a head wound. But it's not the best part of the story. This story is about music. Music at Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival. You'll notice I omitted the. It's not The Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival. It’s Grey Fox. We’ll get to that just like we’ll get to the head wound. But first, music. After all, that’s why we travel to the Catskills every year. But why this music? What about this music sets it apart? Truth be told, bluegrass can feel so rigid.

Highlighted by spirited headlining performances by The Devil Makes Three (Saturday), The Infamous Stringdusters (Friday), and Railroad Earth (Sunday), there was a profound additional component to this year’s WinterWonderGrass Tahoe. The weather. Before turning all sunny on Sunday, Friday and Saturday’s proceedings included periodic showers of snow, graupel (look it up), and a little rain.

Sometimes I think I am so full of shit. Ask my wife, and it’s probably safe to drop sometimes I think. But coming to Grey Fox Bluegrass Music Festival, a festival I come to every year, trying to think of a new way to make you, fair reader, understand that it is unlike anything that you have or ever will experience? I am full of shit to think I can do this. But thankfully, this year mother nature is co-writing this review, and she’s writing in the blurry ink of rain.

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.

In a time where any musician can self-produce and release their own independent album, up-and-coming talents need to set the bar extra high, or at least posses image marketability. The story behind music industry insider Matt Reynolds’ debut release is far from this trend. The longtime road manager for Grateful Dead tribute favorite Dark Star Orchestra has released his impressively diverse Been Long Gone after years behind the scenes.

To return to a point in your life that you have already lived is metaphysical. Déjà vu, as most of us call it, feels mystical, even if it has a chemical explanation. Scientific evidence aside, to relive something that you have lived before is an experience that seems to connect us with something beyond ourselves. We can both be in the moment and be able to predict (or at least have the feeling that we are predicting) what is coming around the next corner. But to experience déjà vu and to be able to improve upon the actions that once were? Now that is something different altogether.