FloydFest 12: Music, Mud and Memories

SUNDAY

Beginning FloydFest’s final day were familiar friends The Hackensaw Boys, who made sure the crowd had shaken off the mud by the end of their frenzied, hard-charging performance at the Dreaming Creek main stage.  The six-man Charlottesville-based string band played tunes from their five studio albums.

Famed traditional blues group Hot Tuna thrilled the FloydFest crowds with an acoustic set of their musical catalogue just past noon on the Dreaming Creek stage.  The iconic duo, consisting of former Jefferson Airplane members Jack Casady (bass) and Jorma Kaukonen (vocals), with Barry Mitterhoff (mandolin), performed unplugged versions of their classics over the course of their history and the group played the Streamline Stage for an electric performance later that afternoon.

Trampled By Turtles continued the afternoon action on the Dreaming Creek stage.  From Duluth, Minnesota, the group consists of lead vocalist and guitarist Dave Simonett, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Saxhaug, banjoist and backing vocalist Dave Carroll, mandolinist Erik Berry, and fiddler and backing vocalist Ryan Young.  Currently on a nationwide US tour, the group is playing in support of Stars and Satellites, their newest release.

Old Crow Medicine Show officially closed out FloydFest 12 Sunday afternoon on a high note, opening with an ode to their Virginia roots with “Carry Me Back to Virginia,” and drawing upon their multitude of hits including “Cocaine”, “Big Time In the Jungle” and of course, “Wagon Wheel”.  The Nashville-based by way of Harrisonburg, Virginia folk/bluegrass veterans paid many a tribute to the Virginia landscape in their set, drawing large cheers from the packed festival crowd. By the end, the festivalgoers had left the mud and soggy terrain behind, until they arrived at their cars to leave FloydFest for another year.