Happy Wheatland!
Wheatland Music Festival: the big outdoor fest for us each year. It is always the weekend after Labor Day. Some years it is 100F degrees, 
others it’s in the 40s at night. One year we had a huge thunderstorm as people were trying to leave and the mud was so bad people got stuck for hours. It’s music heaven, no matter what the weather.
Everywhere you go, from the first greeter who takes your ticket to the last person saying goodbye, you hear the greeting “Happy Wheatland!” It can get tiring sometimes but it’s sort of sweet. This event has its own blessing for happiness. I think that is lovely.
We had all sorts of delays getting out of Lansing on Friday but we finally got to Remus (just over an hour northwest of Lansing, about 15 minutes west of Mount Pleasant) about 6pm. Brian got going right away finding us a camping spot and putting up camp. I went looking for information on open mic.
It turned out that they had allowed email and telephone reservations for open mic and those people had filled all the slots. We were fourth alternates on Sunday morning even though we were fourth in line on Friday night for the sign up. We decided that just freed up our schedule a bit, to play music elsewhere, but it was a little disappointing at first. Honestly, we got so busy with other wonderful things that it worked out fine.
The most wonderful musical experience I had all weekend, happened Friday night at the Centennial (second) stage. It was a concert by the incredible young artists Seth Bernard and Daisy May. They were accompanied only by one other musician, our friend Drew Howard (formerly of the Weepers and the Saltines) on pedal steel and other assorted stringed instruments.
Those two are just a power bigger than two people can be. Their voices, the heart, the spirit of it all never ceases to amaze me. This young lady is in her 20’s and already has a voice of power and soul, somewhere between Janis Joplin and Maria Muldaur. Yes, that comparison shows my age… but we are talking pure soul down to the cellular level, power behind the voice and heart behind that.
At one point Daisy May put down her instruments and used her voice alone, backed by Seth on guitar and Drew behind that. The crowd went absolutely crazy. If you could only harness that sort of electricity, the world would light up at all hours of day or night.
The late great Howard Armstrong (Louie Bluie) often said, “Soul has no color.” I could not help thinking those words when I heard this young lady belt it out, this tiny young thing with the voice of trumpets. Her voice alone literally brought me to tears. At that point I determined that I did not need any more music all weekend… that one concert was enough to fill three days.
Now, stop what you are doing. Go to the Earthwork Music website now. Listen to Daisy May singing “Shine On” for yourself. Then support these young people (who barely know me, I make nothing for this) by considering a purchase of their wonderful CD. Buy or not, but consider in any case. One place you can get it online is at Elderly Instruments. (Disclaimer… my Brian works at Elderly, but he gets no more or less if you buy this album or not.)
Photos: Daisy May, Seth Bernard and Drew Howard on stage with dancers below. More dancers! Dancers including a daddy holding an infant and mommy holding a toddler, at left.