Mountain Days Festival 2005
Topic: 2005 Reviews
By Tee

I realize this review is a bit late and I do apologize, but getting the kids ready for another year of higher knowledge and still bumming from the loss of our dog of 16 years. So after much harassment from Jess here it is, warts and all.

Mountain Days Festival is a yearly event that celebrates those who have made their way from the Appalachians to the Dayton area, and their culture. The back part of the park is set up with tents and people dressed in old time clothes. From these tents they sell their wares such as, fox tails, deerskin clothes, jewelry and other knick knacks. They are supposed to re-enact the old days of living in the tents, but when you have food and ice delivered to your tent in a golf cart it kinda loses something in the translation. Of course I would dare not repeat this to the woman who put on a display of hatchet and knife throwing. Bet no one ever disagrees with her.

The Festival had several stages, one for bluegrass and another for country and a third for local acts. Also thrown into the mix was a stage for clogging, and at 12:30 that day you could learn the art of clogging. Since I have two left feet and un-catlike reflexes I chose to just watch. Ralph Stanley II was the featured act on the bluegrass stage as Patty was on the country stage.

That week our area experienced high heat and humidity, but thankfully when the weekend arrived the humidity dropped but unfortunately the heat remained. This show had two of my least favorite things, drunk people in the audience and bad sound. From the moment Patty hit the stage there was feedback and a mushy sound at times. You could see Patty having to go off stage during instrumental parts of the songs to talk to someone who seemed to shake their head no more often than yes. I began to get the feeling that whatever she needed fixed they could not and unfortunately it took away her power in the vocals and the emotion she puts into the song. One of my favorite venue’s is Patty outdoors, she just wails, but when the sound is bad she pulls it back. Now before all you Patty fans become enraged, I am not blaming Patty for the sound snafu’s. The Festival people I believe need to rent better equipment or set things up a bit better.

This was the last show for us this year and I wish it would have sounded better, but regardless of the sound problems she was good. And before I close here is the song list.

1. Keep Your Distance
2. The Last Thing On My Mind
3. Long Stretch Of Lonesome
4. You Can Feel Bad
5. She Drew A Broken Hear
6. Dreamin' My Dreams
7. My Old Friend The Blues
8. Never Ending Love
Acoustic Set
9. Someone I Used To Know
10. Boys Are Back In Town
11. Daniel Prayed - Both forgot lyrics
12. Big Chance
Regular
13. Nothin' Like The Lonely
14. On Your Way Home
15. Lovin' All Night
16. Blame It On Your Heart
Encore
17. Nothin' But The Wheel
18. I Try To Think About Elvis