It wouldn’t be hard to believe that Jack White, head honcho of Third Man Records, had a say in Saturday’s lineup at the Newport Folk Festival, given that many acts who’ve released something on the label or dabbled with him in the studio appeared that day. There was John C. Reilly and Pokey Lafarge just to name a couple (okay, you want a few more as proof? Try Chris Thile, Shovels & Rope and Haden Triplets). Plus I saw Beck wandering around on Friday (a few days later White made a guest appearance at one of Beck’s shows). White himself was taking in sets from various acts on Saturday, including young guitarist (and NPR-intern reject) Benjamin Booker, his own label’s Language Lessons reading series (Third Man now has a publishing arm) and taking Polaroid selfies with people.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it out on Sunday so I missed a ton of good photo ops but it was hard to even catch most of the surprise moments on the days I did go. I missed Mavis Staples do guest appearances at least twice – she joined Lake Street Dive on Friday and Lucius on Saturday for example. Of what I did see (non White-related), Reignwolf put on one of the most aggressive sets. Hozier was quite busy, with two short sets on Friday and Saturday and a proper set Sunday. Ryan Adams was thrilling to see live for the first time. Sun Kil Moon (who didn’t allow photos) expressed concern about the number of white people at the festival and how as he was getting older, his dick “wants to do things” but his body can no longer keep up before singing a song he wrote for his mother. Jimmy Cliff received round after round of applause for a set that included a fantastic cover of Cat Stevens’ “Wild World”.
So many of the good sets from the main stage were recorded by NPR and there is a link below for you to check them out, but for now see some photos here or head over to Facebook to see a larger gallery of images!
DAY 1
PHOX:
Reignwolf:
Hozier:
Jenny Lewis:
Lake Street Dive:
Band of Horses:
Ryan Adams:
DAY 2
John C. Reilly & Friends:
Benjamin Booker:
Shovels & Rope:
Shakey Graves:
Houndmouth:
The Oh Hellos (backstage):
Third Man Records Language Lessons V.1:
Lucius:
Nickel Creek:
Jack White:
You can listen to streams of many sets from the main stage over at NPR or check out the set from Ryan Adams and another behind the scenes song from Tweedy & Son in these video clips: