Let's Swill

I didn’t know what to expect last year when I pulled up to SwillFest IV (#1 for me) and was pleasantly surprised with the friendly, laid-back, down-home, mid-sized, summer mountain music party and the relaxed conversation bouncing off the 40 or so guests. SwillFest V was last weekend, and what a difference a year makes. Make no mistake, SwillFest V was just as welcoming and down-t0-earth--I don't think it could be any other way with Ben and Cherie as hosts--but it had decidedly grown into a quasi mini music festival, replete with multiple bands from different genres, more food, lots of kids, lots of dogs, lots of tents, a homemade swimming pool in the back of a pick up truck, frisbee golf, a port-o-john, private party pockets sprinkled up the hill toward the Christmas trees, and a literal game of "grab ass" that Jane and I apparently lost. (But a small price to pay and one to expect when you join the party over twelve hours into it). The party was so big this year--I counted well over a hundred people, and more spread out--that by sundown, if you hadn't mingled with everyone you didn't know but wanted to, you'd almost missed your chance, unless they were sitting close by to you and your group. Or unless you were really drunk and just didn't care. I was ok with that, however, because I was really enjoying the group I was with--even the ones who got really drunk and just didn't care. My friend Jane went with me again this year, and we met my brother and his long-time friend Pat. Even though there weren't many people I actually knew well at this party, I knew I'd stumbled upon a fine tradition when instead of asking myself, "Did I got to High School with her?", Jane and I would ask together, "Wasn't he here last year?"

A sign of a great party to me, is when it's so happening and fun that you want to enhance your experience by sharing it with someone who's not there, so you call them up on the fly to talk them into coming over. That's what happened when Jane and Pat suddenly insisted that we call my dad and invite him to the party. At first Daniel and I looked around and were like, uh, are you sure you think we should call him? But I guess that's another sign of a great party: for people to be in a state of mind to think that my dad could make it more fun and not the exact opposite. My dad and his friend Jim did finally show up, about an hour before we left for the evening, just around the time I'd given up on them. But it was fun having Jim and my dad join us. After all, it was a family affair with both of Ben's parents there, his elderly aunt, his sister, his nephews, and like I've already mentioned, lots of kids and dogs. My dad likes to talk about all sorts of things, and luckily, what he was talking about this night were things that people wanted to hear. Like how, yes, Upright and Breathin' (Ben's band) was playing real bluegrass (and real good bluegrass at that) and how their heart is in the right place by not scrimping their musical integrity by using anything less than a stand-up bass. Somehow we got off on a lively discussion of 1967, the Summer of Love, and the Monterey Pop Music Festival. And at that moment, it was so wonderful to be sitting there in the dark, with friends and family, in the slightly breezy summer mountain air that I had been desperate for during our NC piedmont heat wave, having this great music conversation while some of the most riveting guitar and mandolin pickin' and vocal harmonizing were serenading us fifteen feet up ahead.

And that perhaps was the best indicator of just how great a party it really was. It was difficult to qualify whether SwillFest V was primarily a killer music event that happened to have a kick-ass party accompany it, or a killer party with a kick-ass live soundtrack. It was both, and I'm already looking forward to next year.