What Really Happened

After posting two brief summaries of our time in Dixon, this post is for those of you that really want the lowdown on the weekend :-)

It was amazing in so many ways, I know that I will not be able to fully recount them all.  Dixon is a beautiful town with so many friendly people.  They made us feel very welcome, to say the least.

Molly and I spent Friday afternoon getting the "lay of the land."  This included some less-than-kosher (although still legal) methods of trying to scope out the festival grounds, which were off-limits to the public.

Here we see Molly traipsing through the woods on the hillside above the festival grounds.

We went to dinner with a new friend on Friday night and then "hung out" around the downtown area and made MANY more new friends.  Met some great people from Chicago, Rockford, and Minnesota. Discovered that our new Minnesota friends know some of our friends back home.  How weird is that?  (actually that happened a couple different times over the weekend!)

Here's one of our new friends!

Got high-fived by Big Mike from Apache Relay and Ross & Ben from Mumford & Sons.

The hand that Ben touched.

Got back to the Campground formerly known as Page Park Ballfields and tried to sleep.  Lots of people enjoying their night made sleep a little difficult.  Fell asleep around 1:00, woke up at 4:15 when the stage crew camping behind us got up and ready for work.

Got in line around 6:00 AM.  I should say, we began the line around 6:00 AM.  Our new friend Denise, Molly and I were the first ones there, soon to be joined by new friends from Michigan, Missouri and Ontario.  

We were chilly in the morning, but then the sun started beating down on us.  By mid-morning we forgot all about being chilly!

Waited in line for seven hours.  Oh, and you know how I said I wasn't going to make the news while I was there...well, I didn't make the news, but we did get interviewed for a local newspaper :-)

Molly and I at the starting line (I mean queue), ready to make a made dash (I mean controlled walk) to the barrier.

Made a very controlled but speedy jog, for the stage at 1:00 PM and landed, once again, the VERY BEST SPOT!  Dead center at the barrier!

Then spent the next 3 1/2 hours standing there waiting for the music to start - and making more new friends.

Apache Relay came on first (on our stage) and did a great show.  They were followed by Nathaniel Rateliff - always quality music!  He was followed by Gogol Bordello. I'm not going to write too much about that because it is the ONE unpleasant event of the whole weekend.  I will just say that I feared for our safety at times (literally) and Molly and my temporary daughter Erin were quite scared.  The momma bear in me came out and over my dead body was anyone going to hurt my girls!  Okay, enough on that.   I will now erase that from my memory card.

Then, what we had been waiting for ALL day, Mumford & Sons came on and did an amazing show as always  I don't have too many pictures from the show for two reasons.  One, it is really difficult to take good pictures at a concert  and two, because I wanted to experience the show not photograph it.  It is lodged forever in my memory, I'm just sorry you couldn't have been there.

Mumford & Sons finished up around 10:45 and we headed over to the historic Dixon Theatre for a concert by Jerry Douglas.  

It felt good to be inside, sitting down, and able to use the bathroom whenever we wanted to!  Uncle Jerry is an AMAZING musician and played beautifully, but we were TIRED, so we listened and dozed intermittently...until  Mumford & Sons (sans Ted) joined Jerry onstage (at about 1:45) for three songs.  As you might expect, and as you have seen it was wonderful.  Much more intimate than the big festival.

Hiked back to the campground after that and finally put my head on the pillow at 2:40 AM.  Up at 7:00 and back home we came.  And now it is all just a BIG, HAPPY memory!