Truck Festival 2014 - settled in The Saloon

It happens that this last weekend I ended up too busy to complete the post about my time spent in The Saloon at Truck Festival the previous one.  I wasn't even involved with music, though plenty more has now come my way, by hook and by crook. I'm always on the lookout for new music but I am certainly never going to complain when it comes to me from its author (so more for later in the week).
It is a hard life but by Friday evening at Truck Festival I was comfortable in the saloon. I returned later Friday evening to see a band that, until I was in The Saloon last year, I was completely unaware of:

The Redlands Palomino Company and now the 2014 LP 'Carelessly Broken'.

I had heard the album, it was released in April and I purchased it, but live it is something else. In this case I will serve my blog with pictures taken live and refer you to this review of the album; we don't need to trample on each others feet, there is plenty of music to go round. It was probably just Saturday but whatever; it was time to catch The Dreaming Spires on the small stage.

I find it next to impossible to tear myself away any time pedal steel is involved.

Right. We are now into Saturday proper and that was to provide surprises all of its own.  I can't be two places at once and saw Italian duo M+A on the main stage instead, so the first Saloon act I saw was  the second to play and that was The Buffalo Skinners.

More a Truck-typical guitar band than most on this smallest of stages is, however, not a half-hearted compliment. It was good, very good, and beyond that it is the variety, across any and all stages, that is one of the strongest points of Truck Festival. It may not be huge, might not have the biggest of head-liners but ultimately it is the strength in depth and the values that matter.

After this, I have to admit, I took a sizeable time-out to visit the other stages and have something to eat. Before returning in the evening I headed back to see another artist of whom I was hitherto quite unaware - Nova Scotian Gabriel Minnikin - and that decision was repaid many times over. In the space of a half-hour set.

Takamine 12-string backed only by pedal steel and occasional harmonica. Guitar porn.

In the evening I headed back in good time to see My Darling Clementine as I had heard many good reports. I made sure to arrive in time in order to get a good spot and hopefully some pictures.

 I accomplished that mission and caught The Saloon at the quietest I saw it all weekend.

    

Every band needs a tour manager and front-of-house presence and My Darling Clementine certainly has one.  I was sitting by the bar, making sure my camera settings were good before the set (I had made that mistake earlier in the afternoon) when she introduced herself - she is their daughter and is not yet in her teens.  This might have caught me off guard had I not, a couple of years ago and also at a festival, met Ned The Kids' Dylan for the first time in somewhat similar circumstances although in this case he was the artist and his parents tour managers and all the rest.

The set was top drawer. Music and asides combined beautifully.

Next up was Hans Chew and while I was aware of his music I wasn't quite expecting this.

If I had to select one picture that I took in The Saloon, that really sums the whole stage up...

This is it.