Destination: Millpond Music Festival
Cost: $35.00 plus gas
Outdoor music festivals are all the rage these days, with
events like Coachella and Outside Lands attracting thousands of attendees. Life
on the east side of California is a little more low key, but the Millpond Music
Festival has been drawing music lovers to Bishop for twenty-three years.
Instead of throngs of tattooed twenty-somethings, Millpond draws a gaggle of old hippies who dance and sing like it’s the Age of Aquarius.
What makes Millpond special is its musical variety,
laid-back vibe, and unparalleled setting at the base of the Sierra crest. The $35.00 day pass fee is a bargain. Violent electrical storms had shut down the last act on
Saturday night, so I was glad the weather calmed for Sunday, with bunched
billowing clouds shielding the crowd from Bishop’s sometime scorching heat.
As I arrived, Keale
was finishing a set. Had I known they were playing music of Hawaii I would have
arrived earlier. I wandered over to the
workshop tent to get a preview of Mary
Jane Lamond and Wendy MacIsaac, who had roared into the venue just as
I was driving in, shouting “we need to be on stage in twenty minutes!” They had
come all the way from Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia and their Gaelic tunes traveled
well.
David
Jacobs-Strain shared amusing tales between his bluesy folk songs, but I was
anxious for the arrival of Chris Hillman
and Herb Pederson. Seeing a member of The Byrds in the outback of Inyo County
was a treat. Their set was polished, but unfortunately lacked verve. Next up on the main
stage, the full set from the Nova Scotians and then the talented Mia Dyson brought the crowd to their feet with
her driving guitar and powerful vocals.
Besides wonderful music, Millpond offers a chance for the
tight-knit Eastern Sierra community to celebrate, recover from a busy summer
season and recharge for the coming winter. Kudos go out to Lynn Cooper and the
staff at Inyo Council for the Arts for putting together another magical event. I
look forward to returning for the 24th installment.
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