Faces in the crowd

Fabulous picture from backstage at Telluride

One of the cool things about having so many talented people with us in Telluride is you get hundreds of great pictures that you only discover several days after returning. Found this one this morning taken by Margaret Sagarin’s camera.

Hope you’ll join us for our smaller mountain gig at Red Top Mountain State Park for the Mountain Music Series on July 12th. 8PM – 9:30PM.

Speaking of faces, the band is all “Facebooked” up. Won’t you join us?

Oh…and are you our Myspace friend yet?? I still have no idea what that gets you, nothing I suppose, but you’d be like sooooo like 2005 if you didn’t!!!!

Reality Bites

The DjBGB backstage at the 35th Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival with one of our heroes, Tim O’Brien.

Alas, I return to my urban cage. My designer noose firmly back in place. Ugh. I’m missing the mountains already.

I wanted to share a cool pic Kitty took of the band with Tim O’Brien. Tim is my favorite voice in bluegrass, so it was quite a thrill. I saw (and chuckled at) his shirt before I knew it was him. He had a shirt on that said in small type “Banjo players are like, really hot” – Paris Hilton. I said, “love the shir….hey! you’re Tim O’Brien!”

Also, check these two videos out. One is of the HUGE marshmallow fight that broke out Sunday as The Swell Season played on stage
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and this one of the dollop size snow, almost hail like, that fell during the TBF as The Duhks were playing while the temperature hovered around 77.

Cheers to the DejaBlueCrue

The DejaBlueCrue front and center at the mainstage at the TBF

Mark, Lynwood, and Joey in a “two peace” celebrating the DejaBlue Grass Band finishing 2nd at TBF

Just back from Telluride. We wanted to give a special shout out to the best friends in the WORLD!!!!!We were well represented at the TBF. We had great support all weekend, not only from the Atlanta crew, but we picked up several Dejagroupies while we where there. I saw many “DejaBlue Grass Band” bumperstickers on hats, chairs, tarps,….even saw one on the clipboard of the festival crew chief. For that we are very grateful. We’ll be posting some youtube video once we all get our cameras downloaded. I hope ya’ll keep in touch.

We took 2nd!

Keith, Rut, Joey, Mark, Lynwood on the mainstage at Telluride!

Singin’ harmony at Telluride

Mainstage sign

Wow! What a thrill to be up there playing where so many fantastic bands have done their thing. I’m having trouble organizing my thoughts so I’ll apologize for rambling.

We started this morning by gathering on the bridge at 8:30AM to be escorted backstage. We met and mingled with the other bands while everyone was milling around. After being addressed about stage rules, itinerary, etc. we all migrated to different places behind the stage to practice. We drew third of four bands. It was over so fast my head was spinning. Before I knew what happened, we were out there introducing ourselves and hitting the downstroke on “Gold Paper Sides”, an original gospel waltz. We followed up with our own version of “Panhandle Rag” and finished up with “Little Bit of Life”…and just like that we were done.

Two of the three judges sought us out backstage and we talked to them for about 20 minutes. We got one first place vote and two seconds, so we were glad to get some feedback. One judge (the one who voted us first) told us that we had the best harmonies he’d heard all weekend. Both guys were very complimentary and, truth be told, gave us feedback that we already knew to be true. As a band, we are pretty self aware and manage egos well, so we knew all to well our strengths and challenges. Lynwood stepped in on the bass like a pro, but the best thing he did for us was the perspective he gave us. We’ve taken to calling him “Zenwood” because his outlook is so right on. What a treat to play with a guy like that!

The band that won, Blue Canyon Boys, from Denver were flat-out spectacular. That we were in contention with a band like that was very encouraging, because those boys killed it. I’m definitely flattered to be considered in the same ballpark, and I will be buying their cd and taking it back east with us. They did a Monroe-style version of Cheap Trick’s “I want you to want me” that was stunning. They layered their vocals one-two-three on the “didn’t I didn’t I didn’t I hear you cryin’…”. It was just fantastic. We’ll be keeping an eye on them because they really had it going on. Great guys, too. One thing about bluegrass bands I’ve learned after playing in one for three years…some of the most gracious people on earth. We all decided to meet back up tonight and street jam together.

Overall, we are just thrilled with what happened. That was quite a rush up there playing on stage and I know I speak for the entire band, when I say that it will make us a better band in the future. Lastly, we have the best friends in the world!! Kitty Ray has been chronicling the entire weekend in high-def video, and we’ve had incredible support from Susan, Beth, Judi, Morgan, Marianna, Kyle, Katherine, Tom, Mark, Juliette, Bubba, Josh, Margaret, Bo, Sherrie, Brian, Karen, Kim, Ernie and Kay from Ohio, Michael and crew from Denver, and everyone else we met all through this gorgeous piece of the earth.

Listen to DejaBlue Grass Band live from Telluride

Here’s a link to listen to us tomorrow live from the mainstage at Telluride. KOTO community radio in Telluride will be streaming the festival all weekend long! We go on tomorrow (Sat 6/21) at 9:45AM local time (11:45AM EDT). Hope you’ll tune in!

WE MADE IT!!!

This is the Telluride Bluegrass Festival main stage from a fan’s perspective.

Elks Park stage, Round 1

MJ ripping up a solo, Elks Park Stage

DjBGB practices at the Fall Line before the finals

I can’t tell you at any given point on most days where I’ll be. But if you ask me where I’ll be at 9:45 in the morning,….WE’RE GONNA BE PLAYIN’ DEJABLUE GRASS MUSIC ON THE MAIN STAGE AT THE TELLURIDE BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL!!!

We made it! Got the results about 2pm. Lotta high fiving going on out here. I’ll try and post some pictures later.

Finalists
DejaBlue Grass Band
Blue Canyon Boys
Crystal Ridge Bluegrass Band
Some band from Austin, TX that we can’t remember the name.

So we’re gonna get together tonight and jam/rehearse and try to figure out what we’ll be playing in front of 10,000 people tomorrow, about 20 of which are friends of ours. We have had so much great support out here!! I’ll post more stuff later tonight. Stay Tuned!!!!

Okay, here goes nothin’

Mark and Rut backstage at the Elks Park stage as we were about to go on stage.

Well, here we go. We’ve assembled in Mark’s condo and warmed up our vocals, made last minute tweaks, and now we are heading down to the Elks Park stage. As soon as I hit “SEND I’m walking out the door. I will post some pictures and hopefully some video. Wish us luck!

EDIT 11:06 local time. We drew #11 out of 12 so we are close to the end. Good for us, I think, because I’d much rather be at the end to leave a lasting impression than to be sandwiched in the middle somewhere. We’re back at the condos while our Dejagroupies are texting us to tell us what number band is on the stage. We’re only a short walk from the park so we’ll leave in about 5 minutes.

EDIT 12:40 local time. Just back from the stage! I thought we had a great show, though there were several reeeeally good bands. Our goal is, of course, to make it to the main stage tomorrow, so we have to be one of the top 4 they choose. I think there are about 6 bands that have a real shot, and I think we’re one of them, based on our performance today. That’s the best we could do, so I think we’ll be at peace with whatever happens. The judges vote now and they will announce the 4 finalists at 1:30 local time (3:30 EDT). It’ll take me till about 2pm to post the results. Stay tuned!

Great 1st day

Here’s Rut and Kyle Caldwell outside the TBGF ready to go on the “tarp run” before the gates open.

Lynwood, our answer on the bass came in today. We jammed for a couple hours, and regenerated the synergy we had last year, like the guy never left. We ran through our selections for the contest tomorrow, and Lynwood wove himself in there in record time. We feel good about tomorrow. We’re gonna lay out the three songs that sound as good as we can sound and see what happens. It’ll be exciting none the less.

We saw Cadillac Sky and they were the hit of the day. Man, those guys are incredible. A few of us caught their “Night Grass” show at the Fly Me To The Moon Saloon. This is such a great town!

Telluride arrives

A standing O. Our meal was so spectacular at BluePoint last night that the table of 12 of us gave the chef and cooks a standing O. Just a harbinger of things to come in Telluride. We got in about 3pm local time. That’s my shadow taking a picture of the waterfall with the streets of Telluride in the foreground.

We made the famous tarp run this morning after getting up to stand in line at 4:45AM. Keith got here after getting bumped off his flight in Denver. He drove all night to be here! Today we’ll watch Darrell Scott and Cadillac Sky and then hook up with Lynwood Johnson this afternoon and practice for the competition tomorrow morning. More on this later today.

Follow Along!

We’re headed to Telluride tomorrow!   I’ll be posting a few times throughout each day with pictures, and video.  Hope you’ll join us for the ride.  The competition is Friday morning at 10AM MDT 12PM EDT.   I’ll cover the contest as well as other freaky stuff of interest!