Rockbridge Old Time
Music and Dance Festival 2005

September 16-17, 2005   Jill and Leslie, pulled out the famous FOB Festival Survival List, loaded up the van and headed to Glen Maury Park in Buena Vista, Virgina, for a weekend of old time jamming.   The park is nestled scenically between the Rt. I-81 and the Blue Ridge Parkway and is the site of the Rockbridge Old Time Music and Dance Festival.   Advertised on their website as "....not your usual festival. There's no contest and no fancy line-up of big-name acts. No crowds. But if you love dancing and old-time music in a mellow setting, it's the one for you..." and we found that description to be essentially accurate, although the festival was bigger than we expected (i.e.  it was bigger than Henry Reed but smaller than Clifftop).

The festival site is a 315 acre city park, along the Maury River and  surrounded by mountains.  It is bordered on one side by the train tracks so you hear train whistles, throughout the day and night, as they echo through the hills.  After spending about 3 hours of our drive in pouring rain and thinking we should have rented a motel room,  we arrived to the park just as the weather cleared.  We ended up enjoying a weekend of sunny days and gorgeous full moon nights.

This festival provided the best arrangement for purchasing food we've seen so far at the festivals we've attended this year.  A catering company called, Mountain Mama, provided friendly service and plentiful, wholesome, delicious, inexpensive, mostly vegetarian options for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  It was a welcome change to have someone else doing the cooking.  The only things we brought from home this time were snacks, beverages and equipment to make our early a.m. java.

The park had indoor toilets, extra johnny-on-the-spots, and shower rooms.  They weren't as continuously, well-supplied as Clifftop but were definitely adequate if you had emergency TP with you.   The camp store ran out of ice by Saturday but there is ice to be had quite close to the park.  Our congenial tent-neighbors, Bruce and Ann, made a store run and set us up for the weekend.

Rockbridge is a friendly, fun festival and, in this, its 19th year, it felt like a big, family party.  We liked that there were not a lot of organized events to distract from jamming and socializing. (Here's a pdf of the 2005 schedule.)  It took us about 4.5 hours to get there.  An easy drive from the DC metro area, it's just a straight shot down I-81 and, in fact, we saw lots of folks we recognized from back home.  The festival ends around noonish on Sunday and there are RVs lined up ready to get in and nab your spot but folks didn't seem too antsy about it. We had plenty of time for breakfast, last minute jam and goodbyes before we packed up in a leisurely fashion to head on home.  We had a good time, no doubt about it.  Thanks Rockbridge organizers!  We'll be back.   (Click here for Rockbridge 2006)