Cecilfest

Just a quick and brief write-up of my experiences at Cecilfest. As regular readers know, my friend and band-mate Cecil hosts this large, weekend-long campout party every year. To quote Cecil's explanation on the Cecilfest Web site:

"The question that I get asked the most is, 'Why do you do it?. To make a long story short, a professor of mine in college, Robert W. Smith, created a scenario in class with an ending that scared me. ‘…As we get older our circle of friends gets smaller and smaller.’ Friends are the most important part of my life and I want to make that circle grow as large as possible."

Magnolia Blue was the Saturday night headliner. I also got asked to play on Friday with a pick-up group put together by Rob Hornfeck. So, Cecilfest became a two night camput for me.

The event's previous location west of Dulles has been sold (no doubt to a McMansion developer) and so there was a new location this year - a beautiful piece of land alongside the Shenandoah River just outside of Harper's Ferry. I wanted to get out of DC ahead of the worst of Friday evening traffic, whic got me there mid-afternoon on Friday. This gave me a chance to grab a primo campsite right by the river. On one side of me was a woman with two young kids, and on the other a quiet guy who turned out to be Terry, the brother of Gary, Magnolia Blue's trombonist. Terry knows Cecil from college which is how Gary got introduced to the band. While I was setting up my tent some eccentric character came over and started chatting. Among the things he told me was that he hadn't brought any camping gear and so might just be sleeping on the ground. He stopped by my campsite a number of times Friday, but I didn't see him after that. He did seem to know other people there - hopefully someone took him in. The other Jesse (Magnolia Blue's drummer) was playing Friday with Rob too. He showed up some time in the afternoon with minimal borrowed camping gear (no sleep mat!) and set up his tent near mine.

My campsite

Friday's set went quite well - particularly for a band that met each other for the first time onstage! I love playing with Rob - he's an excellent guitarist and when he gets onstage he sheds his 7th grade math teacher persona and goes full-on guitar god. Check out the windmills!

Cecilfest chalices (and Cecil!)

I didn't hang around and watch the other Friday night bands; not long after our set I went back to my tent for the night. Cecilfest is not a place for easy sleeping, though. The music and partying goes on all night long. Fortunately, my experience growing up adjacent to the New York City subway serves me well to this day and with the aid of bourbon and Benadryl I got to sleep without much problem.

I knew I would be hangin' around all day Saturday and so I brought my bike. After a leisurely breakfast by the river I headed out to do a ride on the C&O canal towpath. I had considered the possibility of road riding right out of the campsite, but twisty West Virginia roads with no shoulders don't make for good riding - I had visions of being squashed by some redneck in a pickup truck. It wasn't a long drive to get to the C&O, which runs right by Harper's Ferry, though I can legitimately say I had to drive through three states to get to my start (Harper's Ferry sits at the intersection of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland and drove through all three).

I parked at Dargan Bend Recreation area, which has a nice, large parking lot and well maintained pit toilets. I headed west on the trail for about nine miles and then rode up into Shepherdstown and explored the town a bit - pretty college town. On the way back, just two miles from Dargan's Bend I got a flat tire, which I had to fix on the fly - otherwise I would have had to have walked the bike two miles back. I filled the tire only partially, not wanting to stress it. This turned out to have been a good decision, since I must have pinched the tube or something doing the trail side repair. Sunday night (I was back home and the bike was back in the basement) the tire blew out with such a bang that Valerie and I, two floors away, jumped!

C&O Canal towpath

At Shepherd College - ram mascot

Riding on dirt is slower than riding on pavement, so my eighteen mile ride, plus the time to drive to and from the trail, wound up taking up the whole morning. I got back to the campsite in time for some lunch, and then the rest of my band mates started arriving. Gary set up a tent in our area. Swish (alto sax player) wasn't staying overnight, but he and his wife pulled up chairs to hang out. Shawn (guitar) pulled up in his big ol' pickup truck (he's in the building trades so has an actual legit reason for owning a big pickup). Wingo (tenor sax player) showed up too. So we had a pretty nice little band encampment! I had somehow neglected to bring dinner so I made do with a combination of snacky items and food scrounged from the Cecilfest mega pot luck.

The Magnolia Blue set went well too. We went on at around 10 and played for about two and a half hours - it went by quickly! As we got off the stage someone started yelling "Fire! Fire!" We looked and there was a tree on fire not far from the stage! I'm not sure anyone is clear on exactly what happened. Cecil brings in a big honkin 40kW generator to power the big stage and someone said an electrical cable overheated, but I don't think the power ran anywhere near the tree. Who knows. In any case, putting my own interests first, I continued packing up my gear and by the time I finished loading the car the fire had been extinguished.

Magnolia Blue

Me

Saturday was another late night. After the main stage shuts down there's late night music from an acoustic (but amplified!) dup known as the Free Floating Musical Experience, which is somehow on a small stage provided by the Alexandria Cryptozoology and Paranormal Society. I don't even pretend to get it. Anyway, when I woke up at 2:30 FFME was still playing, but they were done by the time I woke up Sunday morning, so I can't tell you how long into the night they played - just that it was until some time between 2:30 and 6:30.

Soul patch

One last thing - right before leaving for Cecilfest I shaved off my goatee (techically, since it included a mustache it was a Van Dyke, but everyone refers to such a beard as a goatee), leaving only the little soul patch below the lower lip. Valerie noticed when we Facetimed that evening and demanded that I shave the damn thing off when I returned home. Which I did.

Anyway, Sunday morning I woke up and broke camp, not even taking time for breakfast, and headed home. Perfect weather, fun time.