Photo by Campbell Davis

Nothing to do now but check out more music! Though the festival has the word “blues” in its name, like most festivals, it hardly limits itself by the label. I overheard one disgruntled festival-goer storming across the field, making for the exit, say, “This isn’t blues.” “Suit yourself,” I think, “more room for me to boogie.” Most of Saturday’s after-brew lineup was pretty funky, with Dumpstaphunk and The Meter Men representing New Orleans in fine fashion, and George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic representing freewheeling freaks, space cowboys, and rumpshakers everywhere with his unique brew of mind-bending grooves. He seems to be able to manage the role of bandleader just fine these days, but perhaps due to the altitude seemed content to leave the heavy lifting to his top-notch lineup.

Highlights of the musical portion of Day 2 include Ivan Neville sitting in with The Meter Men on “Ain’t No Use,” and Mike Hampton (a.k.a. Kidd Funkadelic) taking the late Eddie Hazel’s lead on a “Maggot Brain” for the ages during the P-Funk set. The P-Funk show was, by turns, wacky and refined. By alternating these aesthetics, I suspect Clinton very purposefully caused all onlookers to “free their minds so their ass would follow.” Perhaps the legendary “mothership” is nothing more than the overflowing spirit of human community he engenders.

Remember what I said about those Juke Joints? The subterranean Fly Me to the Moon Saloon hosted an unbelievably cool after-hours set from one-man band Zach Deputy. We were shoulder-to-shoulder and the place was, like, Phoenix hot, but once Deputy started playing the outside world receded to insignificance and all that mattered to me, and by the looks of it, to everybody else, was to get down by any means necessary. I’ve liked several of Deputy’s sunshiney-disco-folk recordings, but nothing compares to witnessing his building of the loops in front of a maximum-capacity crowd anxious to get their groove on.

As I mentioned, the smaller venues were where I was convinced the real action was to be had. Come Sunday morning I realized I hadn’t yet checked out a satellite stage operating during normal festival hours in another makeshift affair which is normally, I’m told, an ice skating rink. New Mexico’s Chris Dracup was to be the opening act of the day on this stage and, though he had quite a few die-hard fans ready to shake it on a Sunday morning, and his tone was clean and his presentation very bluesy in the traditional sense, the crowd was, to be kind, sparse. Sunday morning’s bound to be a rough time slot after all that carrying on taking place well into the wee hours on Friday and Saturday, though. I verified this by venturing back into the almost blinding daylight to check out the end of The Lee Boys gospel-tinged R&B set on the main stage (which was awesome), followed by the spry, retro-soul antics of Lee Fields and the Expressions (also awesome) both to what seemed like a criminally thin crowd.

I got to wondering if everyone who’d traveled had packed up and gone home so they could be to work on Monday, but slowly, long about 2 p.m. the throngs started filling out once again about halfway through a much-anticipated set from Shakey Graves out of Austin, TX. His minimalist approach to instrumentation is balanced by an achingly beautiful, almost transcendent vocal delivery reminiscent of the late Jeff Buckley.

Now it was time to hunker down and get serious. If Sam Bush is the King of Telluride Bluegrass Festival (and he is), then Anders Osborne must be the King of Blues & Brews. The stage announcers claim Osborne has played every single year at Blues & Brews and I’m inclined to take their word for it if it will get them off the stage faster. Osborne comes out with both guns blazing. I’ve been dying to see him live ever since AXS-TV aired a measly 2 songs during their Jazz Fest coverage earlier this year, and he does not disappoint. Because Osborne’s performance is so engrossing, it’s a full few songs into the set before I notice Papa John Gros (of the possibly defunct Papa Grows Funk) is backing Osborne on keys. Come to think of it, he also backed The Meter Men the day before. Is Blues & Brews like Jazz Fest in miniature? I ask celebrated poster artist David Craig (whose home base is New Orleans) his opinion, and he states, “I love this festival. Jazz Fest is bigger, but this is more beautiful.” And what a sight to behold the carnival-esque turn the festival takes when hundreds of Mardi Gras beads are tossed into the crowd during Osborne’s set, and a parade of ten-foot tall costumes march their way through the crowd in an ambiguous, snake-like pattern.

I make my way to the media hospitality tent backstage to refresh my beverage when one of the pit photographers bursts in with the biggest smile I’ve seen in an entire weekend of thousands. “Someone looks like they just got some great shots,” I guess. Turns out I was right, but this guy, Campbell Davis, is gleeful that he not only got some great shots of Osborne playing one of his company’s custom guitars, but that he also got some great shots of Mike Hampton on “Maggot Brain” from the previous night, also playing one of their guitars. For the curious, the young company is Born Custom Guitars out of Broomfield, CO.

Now, one of the living legends of the electric blues takes the stage. Hardly anyone actively performing today can claim a 50-year-plus track record, but Buddy Guy can. He proceeds to show us all, including the other performers, how it’s done. Laying it down thick and hard, but with a smiling nonchalance, Guy charms even the most jaded of us into being on his side from the word “go.” He even throws a bonus history-of-the-blues-in-10-minutes-or-less lesson in for free. And he’ll be damned if he’s gonna stay cooped up on that stage for the entire set, because by golly, he’s got a mobile guitar, and he’s gonna snake his way through the audience too! He’s an almost impossible act to follow.

To his credit, Peter Frampton gives it the old college try. His early set is plagued by technical difficulties, but some of his songs are so iconic, particularly “Do You Feel Like We Do,” it’s difficult not to get sucked in. Because this is Telluride though, the mountains beg me to divide my attention between the stage and the scenery. I realize I’m wiped out but also blissfully content with the weekend. I take a deep breath and try to imprint my memory with the Alpine surroundings.

It’s a perfect evening to enjoy the walk back to the hotel, I decide. Encountering Telluride newcomer Zach Deputy on my way out, I ask what his first impressions of the festival are, and he quietly makes the “mind blown” action with his hands up next to his head, and I am in complete agreement.

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