A week in paradise
13 June 2015 | Ocracoke Island, North Carolina
From the very first night when Craicdown hosted a world music jam on the Live Oak Stage, the 16th Ocrafolk Music Festival offered thrilling moments of virtuosity and collaboration. As usual, the festival organizers brought together such a varied and exciting line-up of remarkable talent, it's almost impossible to say who we liked best, but The Yes Team, The Blue Eyed Bettys and Mipso ranked high among my personal favorites because of their wonderful harmonies.
What's hard about the festival is that you don't want to miss anything, and there's music from 4-11:30 p.m. on Friday, from 9 a.m.-midnight on Saturday, and from 9:15 a.m.-4 p.m. on Sunday, which leaves precious little time for sleeping on Friday and Saturday nights. To make matters worse, some of the Hendersonville contingent decided to do Tai Chi on the beach with Grace and 7:30 a.m. on Sunday. I didn't even have time to check out the art work, pottery, jewelry and other items offered by the street vendors. But that's OK. We took naps on Monday.
A big highlight for me was watching The Yes Team work their magic on Saturday morning on the Live Oak Stage. We've followed them around town in different venues long enough to have become very big fans. Highlights for me also included meeting Ben Mackel of The Blue Eyed Bettys. Ben is the son of one of our favorite doctors in our hometown of Hendersonville. Another highlight was watching beautiful and talented Desiree Ricker, also from Hendersonville, lead her music students at Ocracoke School in a song during the Gospel Sing Sunday Morning.
Since the festival, we've spent our time playing in or on the water, riding our bikes around the island and going out to hear the live music that's to be found in the restaurants and pubs every evening. We've been paying particular attention to where The Yes Team is playing and have caught up with them several nights this week.
I've posted a gallery of photos from the festival in a photo gallery.