WORDS / TAYLOR GLADWIN

Harvest Music Festival came again to play on the scenic stage of Mulberry Mountain. From October 16th through the 18th, Mulberry was warm with musicians, fans, friends and family, lovers, dancers, campers, and perfect fall weather.

Year after year Harvest delivers a colorful line-up of local and regional bands. When you think of Harvest Fest, you think of bluegrass string music. You think of banjos, violins, and makeshift bass instruments made out of gasoline tanks. Working with Pipeline Productions, Yonder Mountain String Band’s Harvest Music Festival sets the theme for folk, but in no way is the festival limited to one genre. Headliners included Railroad Earth, Lettuce, Trampled By Turtles, and Carolina Chocolate Drops. Some locals of the NWA music community were the rough and rowdy band Mountain Sprout, 1 Oz Jig, Arkansauce, Shawn James and the Shape Shifters, Candy Lee and the Sweets, Foley’s Van, and party boy Andy Frasco.

Harvest Music Festival has a specific purpose, the music. Beyond the music, another bonus is the feeling of acceptance for being who you are. One infinite element of the Harvest experience is being able to be yourself. A true festival awakening is feeling at home around strangers. Being in a place as golden as Mulberry Mountain where you can wave your freak flag around people you don’t know is one of the greatest adventures of a music festival. People you do not know are not strangers, they are friends you have passions, habits, and music tastes in common with. This is especially true with Harvest, given the tender nature of the music and autumn Ozark scenery.

First timer, Jessica Camp, had never been to a music festival before. She didn’t know what to expect, but when she got there the sun was setting over the trees and the excitement of seeing her friends started to kick in.

“You had people from all walks of life there. It was a blast, with the music on top on that,” Camp said. One of her favorite bands was Carolina Chocolate Drops, a fiddle and banjo-based band reflective of southern black music from the 1920s and ‘30s. “It was amazing to watch musicians in their element,” continued Camp.

The Harvest Festival counterculture is an open and accepting tribe of festy friends you see every year. If the man next to you is wearing pants made out of a tye-dye tapestry, he isn’t going to judge you for wearing a bear costume, or one of the familiar mushroom bodysuits. Likewise, if a dancer is fire hooping to the music, she will be just as supportive to you while you dance through the crowd on stilts. With Harvest being an all welcoming festival, ages range from babies to adults into their 70’s. The youngest person at Camp’s campsite was 2 months old.

If you like the outdoors, enjoy the beauty of the Ozarks in the fall, and can’t get enough good music, make it out to YMSB Harvest Music Festival next year. Feel at home swinging from a hammock in the trees, walk or ride your bike down the street and say hello to the smiling faces that are happy to see you, people like Heidi and her husband who travel all year on their hippie school bus. People from all over the country have been traveling, exploring, and waiting to dance in the dirt on the friendliest mountain on earth. So have you.

VISIT: YONDERHARVESTFESTIVAL.COM

 

 

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