Telluride Blogging Compitition- “Finally time: In Excitement for my First Telluride”

I’ve heard it for years. “So you’re really into bluegrass huh? Have you been out to Telluride?” Unfortunately, for years my answer has been something along the lines of “No, but my brother goes every year and I would LOVE to do the same.” Lucky for me, my time has come to join my brother and the rest of Camp Whisko! In December, I made the decision. I took out my calendar and proceeded to rid the week of June 14th of any commitments except for one, go to heaven.
Every person I have spoken to about Telluride Bluegrass Festival has had a similar description, generally involving the word heaven or celestial. Believe it or not, at my ripe young age, I have already attended a fair number of festivals, generally involving bluegrass music. There is something about bluegrass festivals that puts a smile on one’s face. Maybe it’s the music. Maybe it’s the people? Whatever it is, one manages to acquire a buzz by simply being there. From what I have heard, Telluride is the pinnacle of that phenomenon.
I have, through curiosity, stumbled across some internet message boards and whatnot. In particular, festivarian.com has emerged in my mind as a comforting, warm corner of cyber space to get my Telluride thought fix for the day. There I have cyber met many, many interesting, kind, welcoming, positive folks. From what I have heard, that is only a sample of the Telluride crowd as a whole. On this message board, I have also gained the opportunity to learn a great deal about the traditions, customs, and procedures of the festival. There is times that the excitement gets to me and I feel that I am about to have an orgasm. Okay…that was kind of disgusting…but seriously.
As I look at the lineup for the 2009 Festival, I see a diverse, incredibly talented, exciting group of outstanding musicians. Many of the acts I have seen live before, other’s I had not heard of until their announcement in the lineup. Through the course of the past weeks, I have began to check out those bands which I was not familiar with. Needless to say, my respect for Planet Bluegrass only grew larger. Those boys know what they are doing! This festival seems to me like a good home-made beer. It takes time to create, turns out beautiful, you enjoy ever second of it, and it produces one hell of a buzz!
To say that I can convert my excitement to paper would be a lie. It is impossible. The energy, especially since the Festival and Nightgrass lineups were announced, has been brutally bottled up in side of me. Give me a few more months and I would definitely reckon that it will be time for an explosion right around the weekend of July 20th!