Great 48 2019

[mbruno]

Hey all - who's heading up to the Great 48?

I'm excited to be heading up again - but unfortunately my buddies I was traveling up with had to bail. So I get to make the 4.5 hour drive myself

[Jimmybikes]

I'll Be There! Heading out tomorrow from Santa Barbara. Lets Jam Mr. Bruno!

[RustyMadd]

Hey, I'm unclear on tickets and the price or prices of admission. The only tickets I could find were specifically for the Friday Night Show. But what about the other days? Can you explain?

Blessings

[JAK]

Pretty sure all you have to pay for is the Friday night concert (if you decide to attend). The rest of the jamming at the hotel site doesn't cost anything. You can go to the California Bluegrass Association website, click on events, go to Great 48 for more info. Also there is a contact person's e-mail there for questions.

[RustyMadd]

Awesome! I'll be there next year. Good Lord willing. Wow, almost too good to be true. Blessings

[mbruno]

The only hard costs are the rooms for the night, food, and drinks of course. For the room Thursday - Sunday it was $333 with taxes / fees etc. Definitely worth it.

That said, this year I wasn't able to make Thursday night so I was planning to go up tonight. Looks like they decided I was a no-show, charged me $110 for the no-show night, and gave my room away. I was able to get a room at the Best Western across the street for about the same cost though - so no huge deal. Just sucks to not have a "home base" in the hotel. At least it'll be quiet!!!

Jimmy - Looking forward to it! Not sure how we'll connect - but I'll have my Newson mandolin with me.

[dhergert]

We've been here since Wednesday evening.

Saw DataNick last night, sounding great!!!

I'm hearing that rooms are sold out for any late comers, but there are other hotels a short drive away.

Jamming has been great already. Looking forward to more. I'm playing mostly bass so far this trip, but may pull out the banjo or mandolin as time progresses.

If you are here at the fesitval and see someone with a big white beard wheeling around a metal double bass, that's me.

[dhergert]

I'm here still at the site of the Great 48 Hour Bluegrass Festival which just ended today in Bakersfield, California... We are just relaxing today and avoiding the heavy Vegas traffic going home. We took the afternoon to visit the Kern County museum which has a number of very old (ca. late 1800s, early 1900s) restored buildings from the surrounding area.

It's been a great festival, all indoors in the Marriott Convention Center. This is definately our favorite winter festival, and one of our favorite festivals over all. I'd guess there were probably around 500 people from all over the western USA here.

I brought my main playing mandolin, banjo and double bass and have been jamming with them all. It's my 1 year anniversary of getting my bass and starting to learn how to play it, and I've played it lots here at this festival, for more straight hours and with more people than ever before. Although I have a long way to go with double bass, I am very pleased with how things have worked out. I've even pulled the bow out quite a few times here.

There were lots of mandolin players here, I'd guess at least 100, maybe more. A lot of young people were here jamming, and a lot of them were playing mandolin, too. A very good sign.

For me, it's been really interesting seeing all the instruments here. I've problably seen more basses here in one place than anywhere before, probably at least 50... Lots more fiddles, banjos and guitars, but relatively few Dobros. There was also at least one accordion player, at least one uke player and at least one keyboard player that I've seen.

We've been on one of the 24-hour jamming floors in the hotel. We've also rented an adjoining room and have had one of the rooms open for jam hosting most of the time, and we have had hours of very fun jams.

I've incidentally come to the conclusion that in bluegrass the banjo is not the most obnoxious instrument -- at least at 4:30am when played in an echo-y elevator area, the angry and unnecessarily loud Dobro voice wins that category. I do play both banjo and Dobro (in addition to mandolin), and I was awakened this morning at 4:30am to this sound until it stopped at 6:30am, so I do feel ok in making that comparison. My wife agrees, and has opined for this discussion that the equally unnecessarily loud, alcohol-fueled screeching female voice is a runner-up in that category. But we are on a 24-hour jamming floor after all, so I'm not really being too critical.

This festival is already on our schedule for next year. Great times!

[Jimmybikes]

What a Great Time I had at the Great 48! It was great to jam with many heavy hitters! Sorry I missed you Bruno.
Serious sleep deprivation. Serious vertical learning curve. Great people, great music.
Bluegrass is what grows in my Heart!

[mbruno]

Me too Jimmy - Next time!!

My favorite story for the weekend was around 3:30am on the 9th floor I was jamming in front of the elevator bank with another mandolin player mostly playing fiddle tunes. We were about to start our last one before the other player was going to call it a night. Randomly the elevator opened and Pete Hicks storms out playing a guitar, says to us both "we're playing in the key of C" and proceeds to go right into Nellie Kane without waiting for either of us to say anything. About 10 seconds later, two younger guys come by (fiddle and guitar) and jam with us on another 3 or so tunes. It was the greatest entry I've ever witnessed IMO haha..

Also - big shout out to Brian Burns from Southern Nevada Bluegrass Music Society. Their hospitality suite was a great landing spot with a great crew of musicians filtering in and out (right next to Don's suite too). Really appreciated hanging out there. Speaking of - anyone in the area should keep their eyes on the VeGrass bluegrass festival this year. I was sworn to secrecy but it's going to be a great event this year (it was last year too - but Brian's stepping it up this year)...