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by: Jonathan Kosakow
As a writer, it is my dream to write about the town of Telluride, Colorado. However, I cannot tell you about it and make you understand: you have to experience it to believe it. In a way, the town has everything—unfathomable beauty, storied history, rich culture, and a still strong economy (at least according to real estate prices in windows throughout town).
When you are there, you feel cut off from the real world. Work ceases to exist, internet and phones are ignored, reading a newspaper is the last thing on your agenda. Your main priority is to look up and around you at the mountain peaks that surround the town. It is as close to fairy tale as you may find still active on the planet. It is also just about as impossible to reach as Narnia or Neverland. The local airport is small, and services mostly small or private flights. Commercial service is rare and costly. The other nearby airports are only a little bigger and slightly more trafficked. The closest national hub is in Denver, a nearly seven-hour drive over mountain passes and through unpredictable weather. For a majority of Coloradans, a trip to Telluride is a rare treat, though each winter the town is a high-end ski destination, and in the summer nearly every weekend holds some attraction of culture. This year’s festival, though plagued with less than desirable weather, was easily worth the trip.
Read reviews of Friday and Saturday and entire article HERE.
Willie Nelson and Family
Sunday September 18
The final day of the festival, as with any festival, was a bittersweet one. Ahead of us, we still had some fantastic music to look forward to, but we knew these were our last moments. For me, it wouldn’t be a summer mountain vacation without some time in the wilderness, and since this was the last day I did just that. After climbing to the top of Bridal Veil falls, I made my way to the festival grounds just in time to catch Marcia Ball, who brought to Colorado from Austin, Texas a classic style of Zydeco and New Orleans blues. Among her songs—which she admitted nearly always speak of love, food, or Louisiana—were practiced and prideful numbers that, though we may not have heard them before, were somehow familiar.
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit brought another taste of the South, but a different one. As Isbell commented upon taking the stage, they were Sunday’s staple rock ‘n’ roll band. The quintet tore through a set of guitar-driven rockers, and ended on a high note with a passionate cover of Neil Young’s “Like a Hurricane”.
With the show now really winding down to a close, the festival goers quickly packed tightly to the front to catch the legend Robert Cray. Cray and his band were among the most impressive performers of the weekend. Though his set was one of the calmer ones, it was also one that captured more attention than any of the others. For the majority of the festival felt open and expansive, but was more crowded for Cray than at any other time up to that point—and Cray responded warmly. His current quartet played each note like it was their last, relishing each one with perfect placement.
The crowd packed even tighter for Willie Nelson: parades of families zigzagged through the grounds, and others just pushed through to the front. Nelson took the stage at 6:00pm sharp, just enough time to play his entire set in daylight on his old beaten guitar. His set was littered with just about every song you could have asked him to play—from the opener “Whiskey River” to “On the Road Again”, and of course the classic “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before”.
At 78 years old, Nelson wastes no time between songs, and runs through each one without even having to think—or at least so it seems. His voice has lost nothing in its years, and still maintains the iconic tone that has filled our ears for so many decades. As a guitar player, he is still able to fire through riffs and toss in jazzy chords—he leads his equally talented band like a grandfather would lead his grandson, confident and without hesitation, but careful not to step on any toes.
With the festival over, and the final sunset on the Telluride festival season falling behind the mountains, it was no time to reminisce on the weekend that had just passed—it was time to look forward to the next one.
Kids Parade by Barry Brecheisen