Best Fest?

Best Fest Ever?

Ivan Neville called it from the Purple Hat Circus Tent stage at Bear Creek festival Sunday night: “You heard it here first -- This is the best fest! Hell, yeah!”

Maybe he says that at all the fests. In this case, he’s right on the money.

Promoters Lyle Williams and Paul Levine, based in North Florida, have put their impeccable musical tastes to work at Bear Creek, which hit its stride beautifully in its third year. Featuring some of the most mind-blowing performers out of New Orleans, Florida, and beyond, Bear Creek focuses on funk and jam, and enjoys a stellar location: the magical, moss-draped, forested Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida.

Levine and Williams’ goal is to have the most sit-ins of any musical fest, and that’s a goal that’s gonna please fans and musicians both. This weekend, they delivered. By making the venue a blast for the musicians, they want to stick around and play, play, play. The result is an astounding array of musical chops, cross-pollination and get-down jamming that’s unparalleled outside of New Orleans. When you’ve got James Brown’s horn player (Fred Wesley) and George Clinton’s (Parliament/Funkadelic) key board player (Bernie Worrell), you know you’re doing something right.

“We focus very much on selecting bands that are incredible live performers,” says Levine. “Record sales and radio play really don’t factor that much into our thinking. For the most part, we’ve seen and enjoyed many of the bands.”

“If there’s anything we strive to base our festival experience on, it is probably the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage festival, especially what happens at night after the festival, when all these incredible musicians are collaborating in all these clubs, playing until 7 in the morning. If the musicians feel comfortable and at home, that’s when that type of magical collaboration happens.”

Indeed, the only thing festgrrl lacked during the weekend was sleep. Just when you thought you couldn’t boogie any more, Levine and Williams pulled another surprise out of their purple hats.

At every festival, there’s always tension in the fact that you can’t make every show. But at Bear Creek it was worse – there were no sets you could miss, seriously, because you never knew which surprise musicians would pop up.

Guitar virtuoso Derek Trucks showed up. So did JJ Grey of the stellar Florida-based soul band Mofro, joining New Orleans funk powerhouse Galactic in one set and Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk in another. Bear Creek had a Saturday night mystery set on the schedule, adding to the anticipatory vibe and buzz among festivarians. It turned out to be Soulive, who did memorably funky thick instrumental versions of the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby and She’s So Heavy during their encore.

There was so much stellar playing that you hardly had time to absorb the impact of one show before you were at another. A real standout for me was Third Stone, the Gainesville funk/soul/world beat band. They were joined by Worrell, the Moog synthesizer legend known for laying down fat grooves in Parliament/Funkadelic and The Talking Heads. Wesley, the James Brown horn player, joined that set, too.

Toubab Krewe out of Asheville, North Carolina played a mind-blowing set of danceable world beat/jazz funk in the beautiful forested ampitheatre. Other standouts: powerhouse funkateers Lettuce, Dr. Claw, The New Mastersounds, Dumpstaphunk, Galactic, Trombone Shorty, Skerik, Papa Mali, Hill Country Revue, Lotus, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Steve Kimock Crazy Engine, Gravity A, Green Hit, Zach Deputy, from South Carolina, and Atlanta’s Donna Hopkins Band with killer guitarist Bobby Lee Rodgers (The Codetalkers, Bobby Lee Rodgers Band.)

Just look at that list, my God! Even the less well-known bands were playing their booties off. Orlando/Tallahassee band Curious Circus with FunkUs had 14 people on the campground stage Sunday morning, including the Lee Boys’ steel guitar player Roosevelt Collier. Shout outs, too, to my Tallahassee musician friends, Two Foot Level, Soular System, Polyester Pimpstrap, Stillwood, and Catfish Alliance. You rocked it hard!

An estimated 5,000 people showed up, which gives the fest a really intimate feel. JJ Grey said Bear Creek “is like coming to a family reunion.”

“I never get to see some of these guys,” he said backstage. “This is so great for me.”

Grey said he may be bringing Mofro’s Blackwater Soul Review show to Suwannee Music Park in the near future. Sweet! The event – a festival of killer performers chosen by Grey and showcased in a day-long show of killer proportions – was last held in St. Augustine’s amphitheatre two years ago. I say: “Bring ‘yo bad self to Suwannee, JJ, and we’ll be there!”

Over and over, people told me how blown away they were both with the fest’s friendly vibe and the quality of music.

“The vibe is amazing,” says Zach Deputy, the one-man band out of South Carolina who has seen his audience double during his nationwide tour this year. (More on Zach in a future post.)

“The Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park is one of the best musical venues I’ve ever been to,” Deputy says. “It’s not every day you see white sandy beaches going into a flowing river that looks like sweet tea.”

“It’s not like playing New York City,” he said, “where they rush you in and rush you out. At Bear Creek, a lot of musicians come and stay the whole weekend. If I’m going to play at Bear Creek, I’m going to be at Bear Creek.

“I think Paul and Lyle are different from a lot of promoters. Some promoters think with their wallets, you know, how much will this artist bring in. Then there are promoters who think with their heart. I think Lyle and Paul are doing that, picking bands that speak to their soul.”

Williams offers up a quote from Cat Stevens, that pretty much sums it up, thank you very much:

“I let my music take me where my heart wants to go.”

This fest keeps getting better and better, so buy your 2010 tickets early and get time off from work.

“Particularly in hard economic times, a good music festival can recharge you and replenish your spirit,” says Levine. “The future is always the bands we haven’t seen yet and keeping our lineup exciting each year.”

Yes!