The Start of Something Big: Big State Festival Day One

Only a few short hours removed, via sleep, from the end of the first day of Big State Festival, and only a couple hours until the second day begins, we find ourselves beat and wore down, but eagerly anticipating another day of great music and fast cars. The blisters, cherry red sunburn, and general exhaustion will have to wait another day to take its toll upon our spirits.

Brody and I took off from Austin, TX early yesterday morning, winding down small Texas backroads, over single lane bridges, through cotton fields and oil rigs, and jamming to Guy Clark. The festival had a lot to live up to if it was going to beat our trip to College Station. There were a few minor hiccups that promised to derail the day (scheduling issues, canceled appearances), but once things got going, and the crowd started growing, the music continued to get better.

On our way to check out Mice & Rifles, we passed by Kevin Sorbo… Matt Caldwell performing to a sizable crowd for the time of day. While walking up to the Mice & Rifles stage, lyrics like “I’ll tell your God and I’ll tell their God as well, they’re the only reason that I pray for hell” spilled from the speakers. I was under the impression that Austin was the only place in Texas you could get away with a sentiment like that. Despite my distaste for their message, their sound wasn’t half bad.

Whiskey Brown sounded like the hordes of southern rock/country bands coming out of Nashville that you could easily interchange for one another and not realize you were even listening to a different band. We were anticipating Rodney Hayden’s half hour slot, but apparently he was under the weather and had to cancel.

Next up was the race cars, which was infinitely more exciting than it sounds. Afterwards Leon Russell and the Eli Young Band performed at the same time, albeit on separate stages. They drew the most significant crowds in the early goings–crowds that only hinted at what was to come for the larger acts of the day, and crowds that differed more in makeup than Britney Spear’s hairstyles. Eli Young fans donned faux cowboy hats and the same sort of frat boy/sorority attire worn by the band while Russell’s audience was more like something out of a Toby Keith song. At a glance I spotted Hank III t-shirts, a Russell double with a shirt that read “LEONLIFER,” a shaved head sporting a tattooed rebel flag, and then there was the one lady who was knitting–big needles and all. On a sidenote, how would you like to be introduced as an artist that has had not one, but TWO Top 40 hits and four gold albums to your name? I guess it could be worse.

Charlie Louvin and Luke Bryan were pitted against each other in the next time slot. Luke Bryan easily won the battle of crowd size, but Charlie Louvin won in the charm department. I think his was the only show in which I actually heard the steel guitar. He even introduced a song by calling out the losers in the crowd. Luke Bryan pulled out covers of “I’d Love To Lay You Down,” and “Fishing In The Dark,” and sang the hit he wrote for Billy Currington, “Good Directions,” to fill up his set.

The crowds had grown into the thousands by the time Drew Kennedy took to the stage, but he had the unfortunate disadvantage of being tucked away on the hidden BMI stage while competing against guys with name recognition like Eric Church and Billy Joe Shaver. With a lion’s roar and a broken guitar string two songs in to his set, he put on an exciting performance for the crowd that numbered less than 50.

Despite our desire to not miss the inspired Drew Kennedy performance Billy Joe Shaver’s summon was too strong. We made the three hundred some-odd yard trek across the infield of the race track to catch the last twenty minutes of Shaver’s high energy performance. Normally high energy isn’t an adjective that’d you use when talking about a sixty-eight year old man, but how else would you describe an artist doing 360s while flying through the air and fists pumping every five seconds? Yea, high energy. It was a stark contrast to his a capella performance at Waterloo Records a few days prior.

Possibly the largest crowd belonged to Dierks Bentley, but Robert Earl Keen held his own just across the field. Before their sets were even close to being finished the Miranda Lambert faithful had started to gather at her dark and empty stage. I still haven’t decided who had more stage presence between Miranda Lambert and her hair. She was all over the place doing her best David Lee Roth impersonation one minute and shooting some sort of imaginary, hybrid pistol that had both a hammer and a pump action the next. The crowd ate it up. She also took home the trophy for biggest belt buckle sighting of the day.

After having some early success in his career Chris Cagle has been relatively quiet for the past couple of years, but that didn’t stop his fans from coming out to support his show. He pulled out all the hits to keep people singing along and hands waving through the air. It was also Cagle who sparked a two-hour conversation about country music between Brady, Jim, and I that didn’t end until all the festivities were over for the day. My only regret was that I didn’t get to see Lyle Lovett up close, but from where we were standing his audience was about the same size as what you would find at the Little State stage throughout the day. Lynyrd Skynyrd stole his thunder and that’s a shame, because Lovett writes great, substance-filled music.

Overall, I think the folks at C3 Presents have figured out the forumla for a successful festival: namely, good music, football, BBQ, beer, fast cars, and for the single men, women. Having more than 20 cars go up in flames and black smoke billowing into the air doesn’t seem to hurt, either. When we inquired the medical staff about injuries, they had only treated a few cases of dehydration and fortunately, no one was injured in the car fires. Stay tuned for more coverage!

Read our wrap-up of the festivities from Big State Festival 2007: Day 2.

by Brady and Brody “Yes, We’re Twins” Vercher