When I was young I had fantasies of being a rock star, but I was a failure in guitar lessons and couldn’t really hold a tune, so that didn’t really work out.  But I’ve stayed pretty obsessed with music.  I like to be surrounded by it, and in my mind my life is accompanied by a soundtrack.  Somehow music makes even the darkest situation bearable.

Yes, life is good when there is music around and life was great this weekend.  I spent Saturday and Sunday a the Life is Good Festival in Canton, MA and I heard some amazing artists.

The festival raises money for the Life is Good Foundation to help kids overcome life-threatening challenges such as violence, illness and extreme poverty.  Pretty much everything anyone did on the festival grounds those two days somehow contributed to the work of the foundation.  Even if you bought a beer and threw a dollar into the tip jar, the proceeds and the tip went to the Foundation.  An awful lot of the work that had to be done those days was done by volunteers.  Some of them were employees of Life is Good giving a little extra time, others, like me, did not and were just volunteering their time.

I’d been looking forward to it for months.  You may have seen my first fund raising post on July 14th.  I confess that when I started fund raising, it was for the perks.  I wanted to be up close and able to see Mavis Staples, Ben Harper, Jason Mraz and others.  People who raised $250 became VGPs (Very Good Persons) and had an area designated for them to enjoy the show at the front of the stage.  But as I learned about the foundation and its work, I wanted to support them for the work they do.  In fact, the VGP privileges became secondary.  I wasn’t even really able to enjoy the privileges much Saturday because I was busy doing other things.

I volunteered to help out at the festival on Saturday.  Both days in fact, but fortunately I was chosen for only one.  It turned out to be rather exhausting, and I don’t know that I could have done two days!  I worked Bocce (or the modified version of it) for about 5 hours.  I loved it, especially helping the kids.  But the rules were altered for safety reasons, and the targets were all at one end.  No one was allowed to get their balls after throwing, so there was a lot of jogging back and forth across the pit to gather balls and bring them back, explain the rules, then run back down to gather them again.  It was fun, but my bad knee started to bother me, and I had to be moved off that.  I bounced around a little bit doing other things, but eventually I was let off the hook entirely and could enjoy the show.

So about the music…

The music was fantastic!  The bands I knew were all that I expected.  Mavis Staples was, well, Mavis Staples.  This gospel diva is legendary and her performance lived up to its reputation.  She sang her praise songs to the Almighty and she sang a rock and roll classic or two.  Jason Mraz, a hometown boy, headlined the second night and was incredible as usual.  His band was tight, his voice in good form, and he was a lot of fun.  For example, he ate pieces of cantaloupe from time to time throughout his set, and at one point tossed a piece from the stage that a boy caught in his mouth.  That boy and a young girl were brought up on stage to be “back up dancers” at one point.  Ben Harper and the Relentless 7 headlined the first night.  Harper rocks as a guitarist, calling to mind Jimmy Paige, Jimi Hendrix or any of the guitar greats!  He has also the bravado and swagger of those guitar heros too, except he’s often sitting in chair playing like you more often see with pedal guitarists.  When he was done with his solo he rocked back, and held his guitar in the air with one hand.   Brett Dennen was charming and had a sensational band.  He could have used better sound mixing, though.  His voice was somewhat drowned out by his band.

The Big Easy was quite well represented.  Galactic is a Funk / Jazz group from NOLA.  They have a wonderful horn section and great percussion.  They also had great vocals.  Or at least they did Saturday when they were joined by Cyril Neville, from the Neville Brothers, who sang a few of the funkier numbers, and Corey Henry from the Rebirth Brass Band was with them throughout the set.  Trombone Shorty also joined the band for a number.

He later played his own set with his band, the Orleans Avenue.  Trombone Shorty’s real name is Troy Michael Andrews, and he’s only 24 years old.  When his band first came out, you might have thought you had walked into a high school talent show.  They look so young and even a little dorky.  But once they started to making music and Shorty came out…  Well, they still looked like kids, but they were the coolest kids in the room by far!  And they were far cooler than anyone older than them, too!  They started to play and they owned the room.  They blew their horns and the party got started!  The band plays a a jazz infused funk/pop/hip-hop mix, but old school.  If you ever get the chance to see these guys live, you must do so.  The last time I did was at the 2009 French Quarter Festival in New Orleans and they played on a huge field on the River Walk.  I felt like I was a mile from the stage.  Here he’s less known and playing against an act on the main stage, so I was able stand directly in front of the stage, in the midst of photographers.

Los Angeles was represented by Ozomatli, a totally new discovery for me, though they’ve been around since 1995.  They were amazing!  I loved their sound, which they once described as follows.

You drive down Sunset Boulevard and turn off your stereo and roll down your windows and all the music that comes out of each and every different car, whether it’s salsa, cumbia, merengue, or Hip Hop, funk or whatever, it’s that crazy blend that’s going on between that cacophony of sound is Ozomatli, y’know?

They’re quite a large ensemble, with various forms of percussion, horns, guitars…  Their performance rocked and their interaction with the audience was, well, alternately exciting, fun and adorable.  At one point half a dozen or so children were brought up from the audience and given maracas.  Band members genuinely engaged them, too.  After the provided rhythm with the maracas, the saxophonist led them around the stage in a junior Conga line.

Finally,  Toubab Krewe became another new favorite!  They are a Rock band based in Asheville, North Carolina and their music is strongly rooted in the tradition of their home.  But it is equally rooted in the music of West Africa, Mali in particular.  It is mostly instrumental, though they did play a folk song from North Carolina sung by Justin Perkins that I quite enjoyed and would have been intrigued to hear more of.  It was amazing to see the African instruments played by a white guy from the Carolinas in a Rock and Roll/Afro-pop/Fusion band.

You’ve probably noticed a trend in my musical interests here.  I like the border-crossers, the genre-mixers and those who push barriers.  These three bands all did that.

In fact there was no band on the lineup that I didn’t like.  Ok Go and Dr. Dog were both new to me and I liked them both.  They Might Be Giants were fun, as I expected.  But these were the the most exciting discoveries.

Overall the the festival was two days that definitely made is seem like life is good!

I’m still collecting donations, so please click here if you would like to make a donation to the foundation!

Thank you!

My entry from the first day contains a slide show of selected photos taken throughout the festival.

Here are a few videos by some of the artists mentioned above.

And finally, from her new album, an acoustic version of the title track “You Are Not Alone.”

UPDATE – For other accounts and great photos from the show, see:

• Hidden Tracks
• The Boston Globe
• Bradley’s Almanac
• Concert photos by Rich Gastwirt Concert Photography
• Video from the Life is Good YouTube Channel

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