Last Saturday I was in bachelor-mode since Mer was in Florida for an education conference (and was getting to stay with her parents as a bonus!). Happily, I had an excellent social opportunity to shake me out of my stay-at-home mentality – the Kent State Folk Festival.

The Kent State Folk Festival is a folk music festival that happens every year in Kent. They have multiple acts around town (I think they had forty acts in different locations this year), and always bring in some headliners for the big venues. One of the bands this year was a favorite of mine – Eddie From Ohio. They have a great, tight sound with rich harmonies and some pretty kick-butt guitar playing, and they have not toured much of late, so I was excited to see them. I like sharing music, so I invited my friends and colleagues Dubbs and LT along, and they agreed.

We met at Rockne’s restaurant in Kent, and we got the evening off to a great start. We had good food and laughed though all of dinner. Dubbs and I dumped on LT a lot, but he took it with good humor. We then headed over to the Kent Stage for the music of the evening.

At first, I was disappointed that there were two opening acts for Eddie From Ohio – I wanted to jump right to the “good stuff.” I was pleasantly surprised, though. Both acts were excellent. The evening actually started with the winner of the Kent Folk Festival talent contest; the winner gets to perform one 4-minute song on stage to open the evening. The man did pretty well, but forgot to plug in his guitar, so that his vocals we much louder than his guitar. The acoustics in the Kent Stage are pretty good, so we still could hear his playing.

Then, the Secret Sisters came on. They really are sisters, and they sing old-time- style music (they did several Hank Williams, Sr., songs) with great harmonies. All three of us really enjoyed their music, and LT actually missed the start of the second set so he could talk with them in the lobby. LT got a CD, but sadly they had left the building by the second intermission when Dubbs and I wanted to buy their CD. 

The second set was a pianist and singer, Vienna Tang. She was a stunningly accomplished piano player, and her lyrics were intricate. She was fascinating to watch and hear. She had brought an electronic loop-back machine with her, so she was able to sing harmony with herself, and she “sampled” herself clapping so she could provide her own percussion as well. It was a great act. Dubbs used her iPhone to buy an album from iTunes during the second intermission. I enjoyed the show, but I will probably not buy a CD because the music was so intricate; it was very heavily influenced by classical music, and so was a bit outside of my normal listening taste. Still, it was a great concert.

Dubbs gave me grief during the second intermission because it was 9:30 already and she was tired. She threatened me and said Eddie had better be darn good. Happily, they were. They came out singing songs that showcased the amazing range and power of Julie, the lead singer, and they did well for themselves on guitar as well. I think it was the third song in where they did “Great Day,” an a cappella song that has great harmonies and blows the roof off of any venue with Julie’s power. Eddie had great stage chemistry and had good banter, and did a great mix of songs covering many of their nine albums. I was very impressed, and Dubbs admitted that I had actually done something right. LT also seemed impressed, so we all had a pretty great evening.