Great time on Saturday at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh, with first ever Bluegrass Day! 4 great bands sharing the main stage all afternoon and evening. beautiful sunny, hot day. I am not able to make it to any festivals this year, so this was a treat.

Mon River Ramblers - the one local act, played great! Looking to record their second CD this fall after they won the new artist contest (?) at DelFest last year, played there this year. Good mandolin player, Luke Stamper. Excellent band with mostly a traditional sound.

Greensky Bluegrass - really an acoustic jam band for what I heard of them, lots of delay and reverb in their mix with some distortion, and loud! But they had the younger crowd psyched and dancing! Long instrumentals.

Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band - good stuff from their set, without a fiddle or mandolin (can it be bluegrass with both those missing?? lol). Great songs, some traditional, some Peter's work, some more jams with long instrumental. Fun set

Del McCoury Band - true confessions, my first time hearing Del and the boys live, and I was not disappointed. Wow, what a show, what a band. All so good on their instruments, and Ronnie was tearing up his Loar. What a beast of an instrument, and in his hands its power was in full blossom. A great treat.

And all that was for FREE!

(the night before, I got to hear Joshua Bell play the Brahms violin concerto in D with the Pittsburgh Symphony - Ronnie on his Loar and Joshua on his Strad in one weekend - it doesn't get much better than that! 2 masters in the fullness of their virtuosity. Amazing)