I took Dave and Murielle to this one year, when they still lived in the Bay Area. It was smaller then, and you could walk around and get close to the artists, except for the featured stage. It has gotten way bigger now. I heard some estimate of 400k people for sunday. That's a lot of bodies. The banjo stage field was a solid sea of humanity. I managed to find a spot in the "friends & family" section, next to a nice Swedish lady, married to a Brooklyn man, now living in SF near their daughter who plays the cello, and 6-yr old grand-daughter. The arrow stage attendance was not much smaller. The star stage was a younger hippie druggie crowd. The porch stage more folksy. That's my sweeping generalizations for today...
I took BART to civic center, and walked the 4.2 mi (according to google) each way. I figured it'd be good to get some exercise, if I'm going to sit and listen to music for hours. I ate a danish, a croissant, and a box of grapes. That's it. Almost healthy? And water, no soda.
Here's what I saw that I liked (I won't mention what I didn't like, cuz that's not nice) :
http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=ALISON_BROWN_JOE_CRAVEN
http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=BILL_EVANS_STRING_SUMMIT_MEGAN_LYNCH
http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=EARL_SCRUGGS
http://www.strictlybluegrass.com/2008/newschedule.cgi?show=artists&key=RICKY_SKAGGS
