What A Weekend!

This weekend Tony and I made a road trip to Columbia, Missouri for the Roots N Blues N BBQ Festival. Son Brian and Daughter-In-Law Nicole live there, and going to "Roots N Blues" has become a family tradition.

The festival has a sanctioned barbecue contest, but this year we concentrated on the music, which takes place in downtown Columbia. Tony and I left our house shortly before 10:00 in the morning and arrived at Brian and Nicole's a couple of hours later. After we brought our things in and chatted a bit, we met the rest of our group for lunch, and got to the festival shortly before 3:00. We staked out a place in front of the main stage with our chairs, then spent the day chatting, listening to music, eating, and listening to more music. We had to dodge raindrops a couple of times, but the showers resulted in a beautiful double rainbow.

We moved between the multiple stages throughout the day. Before things wrapped up and we left at 10:30, we saw:

• David Wax Museum, which played a combination of traditional Mexican music and Americana that they call "Mexo-Americana"

• Toubab Krewe, an instrumental band that fused American music with African music of Mali

• Progressive bluegrass from Sam Bush

• Traditional Southern blues from the Music Maker Revue

• The blues guitar of Robert Cray 

• Los Lobos, which I've always associated with Mexican-American roots-rock, but who also played some pretty good zydeco.

• And my new favorite band, Fitz and the Tantrums, which played an infectious blend of soul and pop.