Magnolia Fest
Words: Morgan Morillo
Photos: Doug Fischer

Appeared:
October 25 – 28, 2007
Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park, Live Oak

About an hour north of Gainesville sits the beautiful Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park in Live Oak, Florida where the 11th Annual Magnolia Fest was held from the 25th to 28th of October.  An eclectic mix of Americana music, bluegrass, blues, alternative country, and even reggae from the legendary Toots and the Maytals rocked on four stages.  Drum circles, flute lessons, and campground jam sessions also popped up everywhere as is usual with the creative, anything-goes vibe of such music festivals.
  
Toots was a crowd pleaser, performing his hit ‘Pressure Drop’ and an entertaining cover of ‘Louie Louie.’ David Gans and Peter Rowan, collaborators of Jerry Garcia performed with their new projects and Bill Nershi of The String Cheese Incident with his.  The Duhks, a Grammy-nominated folk-rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba were my surprise love of the weekend.  The band’s attractive singer, a soulful 20-something female with a sexy French accent and some French lyrics was a unique focus for the fiddle, banjo, guitar and drums backing her, rounding out a fresh, sprightly performance.

The crowd at this year’s MagFest was also very diverse with the typical hippies, young ones and old-timers, sincere grassroots music-lovers, and whole families that entertained the kids with clown shows and face painting.  The park’s natural beauty is a pleasure all its own, seeming to infuse the weekend’s patrons with a very serene, low-key energy, especially when the main stage is one of the prettiest venues I’ve ever seen—an outdoor amphitheatre.  The outer edge was freckled with hammocks to one side, art galleries and black-light tents to the other, and my personal favorite, a guy with a psychedelic repertoire named Sideshow Bob that very well could have been part of Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. 

Regardless of your musical tastes, the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park is a relaxing getaway, where music is an added bonus as is great people watching.  It’s worthwhile to check their schedule because festivals are frequent and something going on there is sure to raise your spirits.