One of the finest, most fun and fellowship-connected festivals in the area, in my humble opinion, happens this weekend when Lincoln's New Salem State Park plays host to the Traditional Music Festival, now in its 42nd year. During the fest, the park campground and village fills with folk, roots, bluegrass and "trad"-style musicians, along with aficionados of that kind of music, as well as traditional dancers and cloggers plus builders, collectors and restorers of acoustic folk instruments. Musicians are invited and welcome to play in the New Salem village area during the day on Saturday and Sunday, which is open to the listening public. Often the interplay continues later at the campground. No sound systems or electric instruments are allowed, but you'll experience "traditional music on such instruments as mountain and hammer dulcimers, concertinas, bones, autoharps, fiddles, banjos and guitars throughout the historic village," according to a letter sent to participants.
On Friday and Saturday nights (6-10 p.m.) there'll be formal group concerts on the outdoor stage in Kelso Hollow (the Theater in the Park space). All in all, it's quite a weekend of music-making done by many levels of musicians with a real community feel. Yeah, it's a bunch of good times a-waiting and admission is free. Old Abe would be happy and possibly even join in on his harmonica, as he was known to carry one most of the time. Whether he could carry a tune is another issue, but I'm sure he enjoyed blowing on his mouth harp either way.
In another festival featuring traditional music, this of the German genre, the Knights of Columbus Hall on Meadowbrook Road hosts our first Oktoberfest of the season this Saturday from noon to 10 p.m. Admission is $5 with proceeds going to K of C charities and the fest includes kids' activities, Dachshund races (6 p.m.), stein-holding contests (for men and women) and of course, plenty of German-style food and beer. But as concerns a music column, all we care about are these trad-style, Midwest-based German bands including Die Spitzbaum (St. Louis, noon-3 p.m.), Die Muzikmeisters (Chicago, 3:30-6 p.m.) and The German Heidelberg Band (Quincy, 7-10 p.m.). Oh, "die" just means "the" in German. And yes, I had to look it up.
And oh yes, we have several more Oktoberfests scheduled around town before November arrives, so now's the time to break out the lederhosen and practice your "Prost!"
If you're not too sure about all this German stuff, Captain Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters are doing an Oktoberfest pre-party concert on Friday night playing all the great, all-American hits this – the most popular band in the region – is known to perform.
The Jacksonville Public Library kicks off a long-running concert series (interrupted by you know what) for 2023-24 called Music Under the Dome with singer-songwriter-guitarist Kevin Aldrich on Sunday at 4 p.m. Kevin has some fine originals, will drop in some cool covers and pluck an instrumental or two on his classical guitar in the rotunda of this special and lovely Carnegie-built library, not far from downtown, for this terrific music event.
There are so many other good music things going on, I don't even know where to start, let alone end, so please be sure to see our regular listings for the skinny on the stuff in our scene. Until next week...
