By Dylan Bradley
PLACERVILLE, Calif. – The inaugural Hangtime Music Festival at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds in Placerville, Calif. – essentially a resurrection of the long-running Hangtown Halloween Ball – came to a close on a sunny Monday morning. October 19. It appeared to be a huge success as we slowly gathered our things to head back to our homes, lives, and responsibilities outside of the festival with hearts full of love.
So many musicians, staff members, admin, and festival attendees alike came together to make the festival grounds come alive for three days and nights and exude pure love and music. Founder Ryan Kronenburg did an amazing job with the lineup, bringing so many powerful acts to the stages of the fairgrounds while leaving opportunity for the community to create as well.
Move-in was smooth as the breeze on Day 1, with the gates set to open at 11:00 am and the music starting at 1 pm. We arrived just as the gates opened, and it was easy to acquire wristbands, load in gear, and get camp set up with time to relax before the music started up. Bring Joy, a Santa Rosa-based Poor Man’s Whiskey side project, kicked off the festival with the first-ever Hangtime set on the main stage.
Bison, a South Lake Tahoe-based local’s favorite, handled the side stage for the first two sets of the festival, delivering traditional bluegrass and setting the tone of the weekend, which was getting back to the roots of the music with old, beautiful instruments and massive stand-up basses almost everywhere you looked. My memory shot back to almost eight years ago when Chris Seal of Bison warmly welcomed me into a campfire jam when I could barely play cowboy chords and a major scale and taught me a few things. Great to see Chris performing on a festival stage.
Boy, was Day 1 packed, with the daughter- and father-led Hattie and Joe Craven Quartet playing a beautifully traditional bluegrass set next on the main stage. Drunken Hearts would hold down the side stage for the next two sets, even having banjo player Andy Thorn from Leftover Salmon sit in for an entire set dubbed “Drunk n’ Thorny”. Pixie and the Partygrass Boys brought a high-energy set to the main stage with an emotional ending, as they announced amicably that this would be the last festival set that fiddle player Amanda Grapes would play with them as a full-time member of the band. It was evident that the band would miss her dearly and vice versa, while at the same time wishing her the best in her future musical endeavors outside of Pixie. Frontwoman Katia Racine also made a statement by wearing a tan bodysuit with the words “Nobody is free until everybody is free” spray-painted across it.
Dead Winter Carpenters also crushed on the main stage, and headliner Leftover Salmon stole the party as they always do! Vibe maestro Vince Hermann was full of energy and beaming to see a festival crowd as expressive as ours. They played for two straight hours and left the entire crowd who have seen them many times murmuring about how this very well could be the best Salmon they’ve yet been served.
Darkside of the Moonshine with Poorman’s Whiskey was quite the spectacle at late night, with one of the more creative takes I’ve seen on the impossibly famous Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon. For example, on “Money,” the signature intro of cash register sounds were replicated by the carefully timed opening of what seemed like a thousand beers in succession directly into the microphone and then passed into the crowd. I wondered where the beers were going. I never received one, but I suppose I could have positioned myself better.
In any event, there were some lucky folks in the crowd that got to indulge in a “Money” beer. Following them, the Allmond Brother’s took the late-night stage at the wee hour of 1:30 am to hit us with a polished and dialed Allman Brother’s tribute set, playing many of the classics including “Whipping Post”, “Blue Sky”, and “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed.” No easy feat, they did the Allman Brothers’ music justice and then some, completing a night of transporting us in time but in our very own way that could only happen at the Hangtime Music Festival.
Day 2 began with Moving Deep Yoga at the side stage to get everyone’s bodies moving and feeling good for another two full days of dancing ahead, followed by a Patrick Walsh set at the same stage. The Sweet Lillies kicked off the main stage, and the Auburn-based Golden Cadillacs held a residency on the side stage for the next two side stage sets. What a cool band name, and they backed it up with some smooth rock and roll music that matched the name. Speaking of cool band names, the Tejon Street Corner Thieves played next on the main stage, hitting us with their fast-paced Colorado self-dubbed “trashgrass.”
HOLY FIDDLE! Bronwyn Keith-Hines, a last-minute addition to the festival, absolutely blew the crowd away with her Grammy Award-winning talent on the fiddle. Her entire band (also named Bronwyn) was so strong and polished, it was quite the spectacle and had everyone in the crowd moving. After that, Later Days, a Mother Hips side project, took residency of the side stage for two sets. They were absolutely incredible with smooth rock and roll of their own, keeping that slightly different vibe going at the side stage to refresh and reset everyone’s ears between bluegrass and Americana sets.
Hot Buttered Rum then took the main stage, delivering high-energy bluegrass with immensely powerful vocals. One of my favorite tunes I heard during this set was their original, “Something Beautiful.” It was evident that Erik Yates sang with a drama that conveyed more than the words, and with such enunciation that he cared you heard every word clearly. As someone who struggles to make out lyrics in live music from time to time, that kind of effort from a vocalist is immensely appreciated and really adds to the drama and full-spectrum performance.
The Devil Makes Three was as polished as ever in their Saturday night headlining set. They featured banger after banger from their catalogue, firing away on tunes such as “Hallelu”, “Gracefully Facedown”, and “Half as High”. They played into the spooky Halloween vibes of Hangtime Music Festival with their song “Spirits”. Banjo player Cooper McBean proudly announced a whopping 40 years of sobriety, and celebrated it by playing a cautionary tale detailing his own experience aptly titled “I Love Doing Drugs”. Hopefully that tune resonated with someone who needed to hear it, and at the end he offered a helping hand to anyone thinking about getting clean in a very friendly, open, and non-judgmental way. His banjo also had written on the body, “Not only does this machine kill fascists, but it annoys them while doing it.” Well done.
Leftover Salmon welcomed us back into the late-night hall with open arms, delivering such a good set that people audibly were wondering if Friday night or Saturday night was the best Salmon they ever had. Man, did Andy Thorn solidify his previously earned spot as my favorite banjo player during that set to say the least. Vince Hermann just gets it at a festival, looking like he’s right at home in this environment, exclaiming that it “appeared we had gotten a lot done since we last saw each other”. Mycelial then took the stage with produced tracks that he played live banjo over and sang, including both originals and his own versions of many Grateful Dead songs, even dedicating one to the memory of Bobby Weir one day after his would have been his 79th birthday.
The campgrounds began to stir on Day 3 with a soothing Sunday soundbath at the side stage. The soundscape became soothing in a different and a lot more funky fashion as Funky Frontier, a Lake Tahoe-based band, kicked off the Sunday main stage schedule. The funk kept rolling as the funky foothill jamgrass group Red Dirt Ruckus took the main stage next. Over on the side stage, the theme of the day was solo artists, starting off with a solo set from Johnny Mojo of the band Achille’s Wheel. With strong vocals and intricate guitar playing, Johnny held a crowd at the side stage while Red Dirt Ruckus shuffled off the main stage to make way for Wolf Jett.
Wolf Jett kept the energy soaring on their Sunday afternoon set featuring the “southern fried vocals” of Chris Jones and John Payne’s endlessly groovy drums. The newest member of Wolf Jett, multi-instrumentalist Alex Benjamin, makes the band a crispy southern fried six-piece holding it down on supportive percussion and some seriously tasty work on the keyboard.
After Wolf Jett, Mycelial held residency on the side stage for 2 sets, showcasing his produced tracks with live vocals and a variety of live instrumentation over it. It was nice that the folks who couldn’t make it to the late late night on the previous evening (or should I say earlier that morning) got a chance to see what Mycelial is up to.
Sam Grisman Project next on the main stage was a highlight of the festival. They certainly brought us back to our roots with a beautiful and traditional bluegrass set. Honoring their Old & In the Way roots, Sam Grisman Project mixed many Grateful Dead covers and favorites into the setlist including “Friend of the Devil”, “Shady Grove”, “Whiskey in the Jar”, and even a “Looks like Rain”, which I took to be a tribute to Bob Weir on his first birthday weekend since his passing. It was great to see Joe Craven join Sam on stage with his daughter Hattie Craven. Many in the crowd imagined much younger versions of Hattie and Sam running around backstage at Old & In the Way shows back in the day.
The backlining for a simple bluegrass set seemed like nothing from my perspective in comparison to the massive production that was Elephant Revival next on the main stage. It was evident that Bonnie Payne of Elephant Revival has quite the sensitive ear and cares deeply that their music sounds exactly how it is supposed to. The end of the soundcheck I witnessed was very detailed down to specific frequency ranges for each microphone and instrument, and it became obvious to the crowd that this was worth the wait as soon as they began to play. The music of Elephant Revival is in its own category, and transports one to a whole other time and place. Their soundscape was so dialed, absolute dynamite job by the sound crew for what looked like no easy task to say the least.
After Elephant Revival ended at 9pm, one of the most unique parts of this particular festival is that the organizers left it to the community to curate the vibe for the rest of the evening. It was so special to see jams popping up all over the festival grounds and people coming together and truly connecting.
There was a pop-up renegade “late night” set directly in front of the Betty’s Balls food truck, organized by me (Dylan Bradley of the South Lake Tahoe-based psychedelic rock band Shrippin) and Josh England (owner of the High Thai vendor booth that attended the festival and bass player for San Diego-based jam band the Jam Berries). Man, was that a fun time! I played with Josh for about the first hour before the bass player for Shrippin, Patrick Dunn, took over low-frequency duties and jammed out the next hour and a half straight up until the clock struck midnight, and it became my birthday. So many people came out and boogied for our renegade set; thank you so much to everyone who enjoyed! We didn’t know what to expect, but we put together this jam in good faith, and the community showed us right away that it was well worth the effort that went into it.
There was also a jam over at artist camp with too many musicians to count in the rotation, including a very talented flute player. I heard a beautiful rendition of the Beatles “Rocky Raccoon” later in the evening in the jack-o-lantern patch while wandering the festival grounds. We also found a Toyota Prius that had been transformed into a spaceship in its interior. You just never know what you’re going to find wandering around festival grounds like these, so sometimes you just gotta poke around.
The inaugural Hangtime Music Festival was nothing short of magical, and I think I speak for the whole community when I say we can’t wait to come back next year. Until then, Golden Road Gathering Music Festival blind faith tickets are on sale now, brought to you by the same Ryan Kronenburg who organized Hangtime Music Festival. Man, does he know how to throw a party, so let’s keep this vibrant community alive, and we will see you back at the El Dorado County Fairgrounds on May 14 – May 16, 2027, for the 5th annual Golden Road Gathering!