Enjoy!

I’ll be there! Also coming are dobro buddies Bill Holden, Rick Meade and Bruce Johnson. See you there!

I'll be there.....

I want to go, but I've been on the fence regarding the financial part, others needs around here regarding money. 

A friend of mine who also lives here in Sonoma County has an RV and he's thinking of going to save money instead of staying at the resort (though the resort looks great!), and he's invited me to go as his copilot. 

Still kicking it around but I know I have to decide very soon...

Ironically, I just got new tires and would have a nice drive down from Salt Lake City....but there went the festival funds.

Looking forward to on-the-scene reviews, reports and tidbits from the attendees.

Sue, Andy, Eric and anyone else who attended - we're waiting on full reports regarding the Pickin' Party.

Full report, Mark, would take up much more space than I have here but thanks for following up. I'll try to summarize likes and dislikes, however knowing that there was very little to criticize.
Stage shows were outstanding! Performances combined artists that we are not likely to see again. Jerry was included in almost every guest's show. It was great to see David Grisman after a long "absence" from touring. Del McCoury hasn't lost much over the years. We really enjoyed him. Marty Stuart was way above my expectations. He was an excellent performer and contributed a lot to the story telling as well as being extremely gracious and sincere to his fellow musicians. On Facebook or Instagram you can see the episode when he let Del carve his name into Marty's mandolin. He was also very approachable and friendly.
Discussions....some of the panels did more talking than picking. This was really a good thing. They had us enthralled with their stories and experiences with the early artists of bluegrass. And, as you know, Jerry is a master at weaving a tale.
Accessibility of nearly all the artists was terrific. We enjoyed meals together and considerable leisurely socializing.
Meals were good enough. Buffet style you can't expect too much, but we never were hungry.
The resort was comfortable and adequate for the entire event. It was quite large and we got our steps in going from our room to the main lobby.
The Dreamcatcher staff was (for the most part) very friendly and helpful.
The schedule was completely full of things to do and there was very little down time. Often there were multiple choices of events or workshops to attend. My wife is not a picker and she enjoyed every minute of the event, even some workshops just for entertainment purposes. She was "over the top"....getting a hug from Marty Stuart didn't hurt.
Downside....little:
The workshops could not really be productive because of the large variation in skill levels, from beginner to intermediate to advanced. There were over 40 dobro players. No fault on Rob's or Justin's part, it was just the situation.
Jamming: There was not too much time for that because the stage show ended about 10:00 pm. Staying up much later than that might cause you to miss breakfast (8:00 am) or workshops (9:00 am). Schedule was tight and everything ran right on schedule. Some of the jams were too large for my preference and there was some lacking in the way of "jam etiquette". That's all I should say about that, except that jamming with Rick, Bill and Andy was very fun.
The "late night" karaoke, was a pretty cool idea. One could sign up and play a song while either the McCoury's or Jerry's band would back you up. More entertaining than I expected.
Couple more things....on Facebook and Instagram Dreamcatcher is posting videos of some of the performances. So far I have seen Jerry and his band, Molly Tuttle with Sierra Hull, Del McCoury Band and Justin Moses with Sierra Hull. The clips are great with regard to sound and video. I'm not sure how to find them, they just pop up on my feed, but I'm sure that you-all can find where they reside.
And, finally, this event is going to happen again, likely same time and place with different guest artists. The constant will be Jerry Douglas and Del McCoury. It's fairly expensive, but for four days of solid entertainment, I wouldn't hesitate to go again.
.....I guess that wasn't so brief!!

Great report Eric - thanks! 

Maybe I can start planning toward next year's edition. Might be easier to make the sale if I convince Mrs. inSonoma to come.

Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives - I've seen them live a half dozen times in the past 15 or so years. Best country rock band on the planet! And Marty is a walking encyclopedia of country and bluegrass music. 
Though it's an old song and not a Grateful Dead original, I Know You Rider is most well known as a Dead song, and John Duffey of The Seldom Scene got the idea to add it to the repertoire  after hearing the Dead do the song in the 1970s.  Several years ago at the huge Hardly Bluegrass Festival in Golden Gate Park, Marty Stuart, the consummate entertainer and a master at reading the crowd opened their set with I Know You Rider. It's always a good idea to include a Dead song at the festival. The crowd went nuts!

We saw Del and the boys for the first time in several years a couple months ago in an outdoor show at Rancho Nicasio in Marin County. 86 years old and he has still got it. 

We miss Dawg here in Sonoma County after he and his wife moved up to Port Townsend, Washington several years ago. My younger brother and his wife live there and he sees David around town. There must have been 20 times since I have lived here going back to 1997 where I've been at a bluegrass show and Dawg showed up to sit in with "Crusher," his Gibson Lloyd Loar mandolin that he had tightly gripped to his body in a white Calton case. 

It sounded like a great weekend in Arizona - maybe with almost too much going on but it sounds like you got your money's worth. 

Hey Eric a really great summary of this wonderful event! So great to meet you, and I’m looking forward to the next time, whenever that is. It will definitely be next year at this event!

I can only add a couple things: Jerry broke his blue chip thumb pick right in the middle of Choctaw Hayride right at the start of the B part. He pushed through like a pro and ran off stage to get a spare he had for the next song. And I was so stoked that he played King Silkie! Never heard him play that one live before.

Funny...not so funny thing is he broke a thumbpick in Santa Barbara when playing his solo mini-set during the Alison Krauss show. He said he has broken three. The great thing about not being as good as JD is I never break a BC thumbpick. Maybe someday I can strive for that. 

While I'm at it, I'll add one more comment.  Somewhere on one of the Dreamcatcher announcements for this event, I read that registration would be limited to 150.  Well, that wasn't the case as there were 300 to 400 people attending.  It was a manageable crowd and they all fit in the ballrooms with plenty of good seating available for each show.  I just expected a more intimate group.  I would say the facility did a really good job of accommodating that large a group.

Just bringing this to the sidebar in case anyone wants an update, more accessible.

quote:

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Originally posted by docslyd

Funny...not so funny thing is he broke a thumbpick in Santa Barbara when playing his solo mini-set during the Alison Krauss show. He said he has broken three. The great thing about not being as good as JD is I never break a BC thumbpick. Maybe someday I can strive for that. 

While I'm at it, I'll add one more comment.  Somewhere on one of the Dreamcatcher announcements for this event, I read that registration would be limited to 150.  Well, that wasn't the case as there were 300 to 400 people attending.  It was a manageable crowd and they all fit in the ballrooms with plenty of good seating available for each show.  I just expected a more intimate group.  I would say the facility did a really good job of accommodating that large a group.

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I've never broken a BlueChip but like Mike Auldridge (where the similarities as a dobro player end)  I'm a lefty who plays righty and I just don't hit  the strings as hard as Jerry, I'm a little softer on the attack like Mike was. On the other hand - Jerry has only broken three in many, many more hours of playing  than I. He first posted about using the BlueChip on his no longer forum in 2009 - over 16 years of BlueChip.  With some of the other brands he wrote that he might go through two or three picks in an evening. I bought my first BlueChip in 2012. 

300 to 400 people attended!  So that explains  it - when I was still on the fence about going with maybe 10 days to go I clicked on the website and was amazed that tickets were still available since the attendance was supposed to top out at 150. 

Yeah Mark, I never sensed that there was a limit to the number of registrants. However, that's not a very scientific interpretation and I can only verify this from my unofficial count....number of people per row x number of rows. Also, another attendee said that the banquet room was set up for 320 diners. At times that room was close to full, and I can only assume that not all registrants would show up to the buffet dinner.

I just got home, and I can’t add too much more to what Eric and Andy said. I got to meet Andy, but didn’t meet Eric, but not surprising with 40 dobro players. Also met some other great people. I was hoping to meet you, Mark, but maybe next year. You’ve always been very knowledgeable and helpful here over the years. My husband attended guitar workshops, and he was especially impressed with Heaven McCoury, Ronnie’s son. Said he was a great player and teacher. Besides dobro, I attended a Kristen Scott Benson banjo workshop. It was my favourite! If Mrs. In Sonoma comes next year, there were a lot of women there who were not part of the workshops, and they were having lots of meet-ups to do things. The Bluegrass Karaoke was great! I tried to talk my husband into doing a song but he wanted to watch the first night. Funny thing is, neither one of us made it to any more, we were ready for bed after the evening concerts. We’ll work on more stamina for next year.