Big Easy Express!

In 2003 a movie called Festival Express came to the theaters. It was a documentary about a group of musicians that included Janis Joplin, The Grateful Dead, The Band and other notable artists of 1970 who traveled across Canada by railcar performing concerts along the way. I called up my dad to see if he’d be my date to the film. “It’s about a bunch of bands you love” I told him. We sat in the dark of an old art house movie theater and as the film opened on footage of the first concert, my father leaned over to me and whispered, “I was at this concert.” Of course he was.

Railroad Revival is my Festival Express. “A bunch of bands I love,” comprised of Mumford and Sons, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Old Crow Medicine Show are traveling by railcar across the southern US giving concerts along the way.  They are even filming the experience for a documentary, which I can only hope comes out sooner than the 33 years it took Festival Express.  To say that I am giddy/excited/euphoric is an understatement.

This afternoon, completely by accident and serendipity, I caught their train rolling into town. I threw my car into park and leaving the keys in the ignition and doors wide open, I raced out into the grass and watched as it casually rolled by in front of me. Artists waved from the windows, musicians played guitars in the open windows, and I was so filled with bliss at being a witness to such an event that I found my hands were shaking too much to take pictures. Fortunately, my mother had more composure and documented the occasion for me.

What is it about a group of musicians that can bring me to a shaking mess beside the railroad tracks?