On Saturday, Pickathon hit its peak with hundreds of day-trippers trickling in and the show schedule at its fullest. The first act I caught (after 8am yoga and an unexpectedly pleasant wait in line for coffee) was Elliott Brood. I knew nothing about this man and his band before the show, but they left a fond impression with their genuine well wishes and organic optimism. I was particularly charmed by their reworking of the infamous “dueling banjos” into “cooperating ukeleles,” which made even more sense after they revealed being from Windsor, Ontario – a city within a Canadian province notorious for markedly pleasant and cooperative citizens. Their songs were mostly “Bron-Y-Aur” (Zeppelin) in tempo with lots of hand-clapping, which effortlessly brightened and energized the crowd, sluggish after a long night of beer, whiskey, and anticipation. Thank you Elliott Brood, my crush on Canada has been regenerated.
In a lovestruck daze I wandered into the Galaxy Barn to watch ninety-year-old Delta blues master T-Model Ford with his band Gravel Road, croon and wax poetic about makin’ love to pretty girls and how “you don’t love me like you used to…” “T”, who recently suffered a stroke and lost partial mobility in his right hand, played guitar like a pro and sang in his best inside voice to a room as packed, silent, and attentive as a church service on Easter. He giggled and joked a bit between coughs, sporting a pinstripe fedora with a skull and crossbones emblem on the side, but otherwise drifted seamlessly through the set.
Outside at the Fir Meadows stage, Frazey Ford was putting the finishing touches on her outfit – a bright red feather-and-fishnet barrette and a sequin cardigan. Her first song was solo and the band came out for the rest. She imparted a bit of advice against Westfalias since just recently she had one explode in a parking garage after she started the engine. “It exploded and burned the garage and two houses. Whoops. Beware the Westfalia.” The story segued perfectly into “Firecracker”, the first track from her new album, Obadiah. She commented later on what a “beaufiful festival” this was and how such a thing wouldn’t work so well in her hometown of Vancouver, Canada. Sure Frazey, you go ahead and romanticize Portland, and I’ll continue romanticizing Canada. Call me when you’re ready and we can work out a country-swap.
I took a moment after this show to relax and reflect at my campsite. What turned out was a survey of sorts of soundbytes from people passing by on the trail outside my tent. So I jotted down a few things I heard for perspective and perhaps as a selling point for Pickathon. Here’s a few:
Father to child: “The cat takes the mouse, the cat takes the mouse…”
Girl to boy-friends: “There was this really beautiful girl standing next to me during Langhorne Slim … but it would have been awkward to tell her, right?”
Woman #1: “Fuck you, forest!”
Child to parent: “I have to pick my nose!”
Woman #1: “He’s killing all the ferns! Save them!”
Woman #2: “I’m staying true to my homies.”
Child to child: “We can’t have the same powers. They have to be different.”
Two people: “How much land would you need to support one person?” “I think one acre.”
Will Oldham, aka Bonnie “Prince” Billy and The Cairo Gang pulled most of the trail-wanderers in, producing a larger crowd than Langhorne Slim (who played just before, captivating the audience like a photographer cooing and wagging a rattle in front a baby to get a response). Most of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s songs were from the new album, The Wonder Show of The World, which meant the show was mellow and intimate – maybe a bit too mellow for the amount of people trying to connect by climbing up into trees and standing still, listening carefully from a hundred feet away. Oldham commented on the feral nature of the festival, joking, “This song is for anyone who made this a first date weekend.” The crowd laughed knowingly.
Frazey Ford played again later that evening in a venue more appropriate for her apparent comfort level -- The Galaxy Barn. Her performance here was a departure from what I saw earlier in the afternoon, albeit good-humored, her temperament felt reserved and tentative. The Galaxy show revealed her talents more accurately, I think. The room was at the perfect capacity; room to sit down, but not so sparse that you felt sorry for the performer, and each song came with its own prologue – an homage to Bob Dylan (“The word of Bob”) before “One More Cup of Coffee”, a brief explanation of “I Like You Better” as being a “Shallow song about a shallow crush”, and a coy description of “Lay Down With You” being about “…when you have a sleepover at someone’s house and you feel weird about it later…” “After I’m Gone” is about Ford’s grandma and how she and her grandpa … made all these grandchildren. “We’re all stardust,” she says with heavy irony. During “Bird of Paradise” she gets her groove on pretty good which may have inspired her to play “… a song [she’d] never played live before, but since [we were] so nice,” we got to hear an a cappella version of gospel song “Walk Around” by R.H. Harris. It just got better from there with a sultry performance of “Blue Streak Mama” and a surprise cover of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together”.
