Bold, brash and brave; The Long Road has announced itself on
the festival scene with an explicit message and an eagerness to succeed. Across
its spacious surroundings in south Leicestershire, the coalface of the project
was unveiled and folks from far and wide embraced an opportunity to delve into
a diverse representation of what comes under the expansive banner of country,
roots and Americana music. Bumps in the road appeared (including a certain last
minute headache) and like all new events, lessons learned will reap rewards.
However, memories flourished and the steep learning curve of embracing an
extended family became more attainable for the organisers.
Criticisms of which strand of the genre was missing will
never wane and no doubt continue to be a decision factor to whether fans wish
to impart with their hard earned cash on a September outdoor event. The alternative
positive course of action is to embrace what is on offer, and in that category
the festival curators served up a healthy portion of exceptional acts. From a
personal perspective (which is the crux of an independent blogging view), the
scheduling of over twenty five acts which I would gladly pay for in the stand-alone
gig format inspired the proverbial ‘kid in a sweetshop’ analogy. With that
starting point intact, the chances of the event not living up to expectation
hovered around zero.
The strength in depth often lies in the artists you did not
manage to catch over the weekend. Although, in a festival where the the motive
was to embrace all, there was still plenty of artists lacking personal appeal,
and will likely remain so, such is the seemingly exponential pool of
fledgling performers meeting my template criteria.
If you subscribe to the notion that a festival is ultimately
judged by the quality of the music, then The Long Road can have a full salute.
There is every faith that this will continue as the event heads towards year 2,
and hopefully onwards.
Looking back over the weekend, the intention of this article
is not to dwell too much on the artists, other than to conclude with a stellar
list of twenty sets seen from a line-up rare in its wide reaching quality for a
single multi-act event.
Away from the music, the fire of creativity was burning
fierce especially in the intrinsically reproduced honky tonk and a front porch
stage as iconic in its picturesque status as you could envisage. Plenty of
covered viewing space away from the main stage (one key aspect though that followed
the standard festival blueprint) had the opposite effect of chasing away any
forecasted rain, although the oversubscribing of the Interstate ‘tent’ and rather
impressive honky tonk reconstruction was pertinent at times.
Indeed, the size and layout of the Interstate is something
to consider. It is tough to be too harsh on decisions made ahead of an inaugural
staging, but feedback will no doubt hone in on this part of the site. On the
other hand, to issue the festival a few improvement notices, a revised look at ‘access
for all’ in the Interstate should be called for. Joining this is the absurd
policy of not allowing customers to bring in some remnants of personal food,
and not being consigned to the usual array of overpriced festival offering and
their limited approach to quality. Also perplexing was not going down the
progressive route of reusable glasses. If Maverick, Beardy Folk and Cambridge
can do it, why not The Long Road. Hopefully, these considerations can lift the
event overall to the high standards set in terms of artist scheduling and the
innovative approach to creativity.
The resounding success in these last two areas has already
inked The Long Road into the 2019 diary. Whether the commendable aspiration of
uniting the ‘country family’ is achieved or not, this festival has scored
highly on multiple accounts and anticipation to how it evolves is eagerly
awaited. Only the marketing fraternity can pretend to predict the extent of a
still niche corner of the music market, but those of us without any stake can at
least sit back and revel in a pulsating weekend of exceptional music that was absolutely to my taste.
Long Road in Twenty
Sets (You decide the order, but they all possessed merit)
Lee Ann Womack: Angaleena
Presley (Interstate): Joshua Hedley: The Lone Bellow: Elizabeth Cook: Danny and
the Champions of the World: Caroline Spence: Folk Soul Revival (Honky Tonk):
Parker Millsap: Brent Cobb: The Wood Brothers: Dori Freeman (Front Porch): Dori
Freeman (Honky Tonk): Jarrod Dickenson: Kashena Sampson (Showground): Ruby Boots (Interstate):
Gary Quinn: Erin Rae: Case Hardin: Aaron Watson (the finale!)