live oak music festival

when i was at the lama foundation i met many wonderful people.  three of these people are, michele, who is a resident at lama and is a wonderful woman and fabian and sophia who are from köln, germany and are also wonderful people.  when i was at lama, michele told me about a music festival that she has worked at for the past few years and said i would love it and i decided to try to be there this year and meet up with her.  the festival is near santa barbara california and i knew i would be in the area at that time.

michele and i

me sophia fabian

sophia and fabian are traveling in america for a few months and came to lama for a one night stay, and i am so glad they did!! fabian and i connected right away and talked and talked for a long time about everything.  it felt so good to speak german again and i realized that i really had missed speaking the beautiful language.  they told me they where were headed to california and so we decided that we would meet up somewhere when we all got out to the coast.  when i decided for sure that i was going to go to the live oak festival i wrote fabian an email and asked if they wanted to come along. they did and so we met up in LA at a bus station on the side of the road and we drove up to the live oak music festival together. speaking german all the way!!! ganz toll!!

we learned a thing about american folks festivals that we did not know before we got there.  the audience sits. everyone brings their own folding chairs and they sit in rows in front of the stage.  they actually line up at 7 am to get the best spot. its amazing and totally strange to me.  the people who want to dance can only dance on the sides of the stage directly in front of the loud speakers where the sound is bad because you can only hear mono and you can not really see what was going on up on the stage.  it was a bit of a drag because there was no real fun party vibe that could really get going with everyone just sitting and staring at the stage. it was very different from what i have ever experienced.

this is how it was

sitting audience

one good thing is if you get tired, you can sit in an empty chair until the rightful owner comes along, so sometimes we did that but otherwise we were always dancing on the side.

fabian fitting in

a lead singer of one band commented in the middle of his performance on how strange he thought it was that everyone was sitting saying ''what's wrong with you people? i remember when the dancers were in front of the stage and the sitters were on the sides.. what's going on here? come on, lighten up!!'' so myself and a few others from my side of the stage and some from the other side just danced right up to the front of the stage and pretty soon everyone stood up and started dancing! and it was like the festivals i usually go to, everyone relating to each other, moving together, laughing, smiling and shaking their butts to the music! it was awesome!!

everyone dancing together

freaking out

at night after the stage shows were over  there was a big tent where the last band of the day would play and then the people would dance! the music was great through out the whole festival. there was some very soft folk singers as well as some really rocking folk bands with many many talented people.  there were jam sessions going on in the campground day and night with all different types of instruments, which was very cool. 

night time dance party

mad hatters jam session

jam workshop

mostly i had a wonderful time with the people! sophia and fabian were such fun to hang out with and speaking german at an english speaking festival was quite strange and fun for me.  we met a group of cute young guys who have grown up going to live oak festival and spent a lot of time with them. they were hilarious and sweet.  we found michele every now and again as she went about her work.  she drives the artists from one place to another in a golf cart, dressed up in fun costumes.  not a bad job, at all!

our boy friends

showing off our horns

chillin at camp

it was a fun festival and i am glad i went. the place was beautiful with huge old oak trees growing everywhere and the weather was perfect.  i spent time with sweet people and danced to beautiful music so all in all it was a good choice to go.

i also bought these amazing hand made horns which is something i have been looking for for along time.  being a capricorn, sometime i feel the need to let my horns out!!