Rock Candy

Stewart Deere was on the scene for us Saturday at Riverfest:

Saturday night brought out folks of all sorts. From the street preacher on the corner of Markham and Scott yelling at folks boarding the shuttle for the Little Rock side to the shirtless man jamming out to Dwight Yoakam and attempting to put the spirit of the dance into every single passerby he encountered. From the group of 10 boats which gathered together to form a sort of colony on the river, to the college students with their goofy
shirts, also seen yesterday (favorites from this night include "Muck Fe" and "Party in Amsterdam.... Vegas for stoners").

Their soundtrack was similarly diverse. From the instrumentally adept white boy blues of the Famous Unknowns to the rhythmically more complex funk of Ivan Neville's Dumpstafunk. The later covered the A3's "Woke Up This Morning," known to many as the theme song from "the Sopranos." Covers expectedly popped up throughout the festival with Spiraling covering a-ha's "Take On Me" thus fully displaying the new wave keyboard rock leanings
in their music that had been obvious all night.

Covers were also on display in Dwight Yoakam's  set, which included covers of Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, and a few Buck Owens songs early on in the set. His show took off for many in the audience the minute he began "I Sang Dixie," as evidenced by the shouts emanating the audience.

From then on he went into hits with songs such as "Little Ways" and "Honky Tonk Man." One highlight was the bluesy, stripped down version of "Long White Cadillac" which segued into an up tempo performance of "Fast As You."

Yoakam played a set that continued late into the night when the rest of  the festival had seemingly shut down. The performance will most likely be the weekend's musical highlight.