Everything You Always Wanted To Know About...: The Hangout Festival Pt.1

The Hangout Festival, May 14-16, 2010

This year, I kicked off my summer with a road trip to Gulf Shores, AL for the inaugural Hangout Festival. Lineup highlights for me were Guster, Rachel Goodrich, ALO (Animal Liberation Orchestra), Toubab Krewe, Trey Anastasio and TAB, and Brett Dennen. (The Hangout sounded extra sweet to me, since I hadn't seen a beach anywhere since the age of four.)

So, my boyfriend and I packed our bags, booked a cheap hotel, hopped into his car and made the nine hour drive. Coming from Tennessee, Gulf Shores felt like another world. All of the houses were on stilts, and every other business was a tattoo/piercing parlor. (I toyed with the idea of getting an impulse tattoo, myself.)

Upon arriving at the festival grounds, I became sure that the weekend ahead was going to be exceptional. Soon after picking up our media credentials, my boyfriend and I made our way onto the festival grounds. I saw that both of the main stages, as well as one or two others, were directly in the sand. Throughout the entire grounds, the breeze from the Gulf kept the air feeling cool and smelling salty.

My first show of the weekend was Brett Dennen, on the Verizon Stage. Dennen's light-hearted music is perfectly suited to the beach environment, and the show went swimmingly (because we were at the beach). This was my third time seeing a Dennen show, and he certainly puts everything he has into it, 100 percent of the time. He danced and interacted with the audience, and as usual, spent a few minutes talking about the environment. This was pretty fitting though, as the BP oil spill had just happened, and would hit that exact beach within weeks after the festival. Overall, it was a typical Brett Dennen show, and it was a great way to start my weekend of festival-ing.

Brett Dennen rocks Hangout. Brings smiles and environmental awareness.

Later that day, I wandered over to the much smaller Jambase Stage to see good friend and quirky musician, Rachel Goodrich. Goodrich, along with bassist Jeffrey James, and drummer Geneva Harrison, put on a fast-paced show of upbeat, original songs. Many of which were from Goodrich's debut album, Tinker Toys. She did, however, sprinkle in several songs off of her upcoming album. During the show, Goodrich brought out a bag filled with small percussion instruments, and passed them out to the audience, asking them to play along with the band. She even asked several audience members up on stage to dance. Her friendly demeanor along with her kazoo and ukulele-filled music had earned her a slew of new fans by the end of the show. Festival patrons wandering by in search of food or other sets found themselves intrigued, and stopped to join the gathering.