newport folk festival

Kurt and I recently took a voyage to Rhode Island to attend the Newport Folk Festival. Apparently it's a pretty big deal...like my parents even know about it big (no offense, Mom and Dad!). We just heard that Band of Horses was playing and that was enough to convince us to buy day passes for Friday. When the weekend rolled around, we took a bus to Providence Thursday night, and rode with friends to Newport on Friday morning. As soon as we got into town, the car got parked at the hotel and we immediately rented bikes to explore Newport.

Shandy was the theme of the weekend, starting here at Midtown Oyster Bar.

Tooling around Bowen's Wharf

If shandy was the theme of the weekend, lobster rolls have been the theme of my summer. I can't get enough! This was a tasty one from Smokehouse.

Biking was such an excellent way to get around Newport and to the festival. We zoomed past so many suckers cars sitting in traffic and got prime parking right by the festival gates. There was quite a crowd of bikes, so thankfully there was oodles of parking provided by Bike Newport.

Once Kurt and I got our bearings of Fort Adams and the stage setup, we watched a great set by Phox.

Cornhole at the beer garden

The park juts out into the water on a peninsula, so we were surrounded by water and got to watch sailboats all day. It couldn't have been more beautiful!

Next we saw Jenny Lewis. I only know a little bit of her work with Postal Service and Rilo Kiley but she was excellent. I'll have to study up some more.

Band of Horses came on next and they were soooooo good. Their sound is certainly more twangy live than recorded but it was still excellent and the lead singer has an incredible voice. These guys were worth the trip alone.

Apparently everyone else and their brother was there to see Ryan Adams. He was okay and kind of a funny character between songs, but his music wasn't all that thrilling to us. To each their own, I guess.

There were so many tempting festival eats being offered but somehow we limited ourselves to corn and ice cream :) And we only ended up getting a single beer because it was so hot and sunny. Lots of water though!

Once the festival was over, we joined the bike mob exodus that was leaving the park. It was pretty incredible to be in a bike group that size and revel in the fact that all the people who drove to the festival would be sitting for hours in traffic waiting to leave.

We rounded out the evening exploring a few bars around Newport before heading up to Boston the next morning.

Every previous time I've been to Boston, I've tried to see the Boston Public Library but have always missed the open hours. Not this time! I finally met with success and was very impressed with what I saw. I might have to do a separate post because I've got so many more photos of the gorgeous building to share.

Touring around Newbury Street

On previous visits to Boston, we've done the Harpoon Brewery tour (which is excellent) but the owners have since opened a beer hall which we of course had to try. Surprise, surprise but our favorite brew was the UFO Big Squeeze--a grapefruit shandy! At least we are consistent :) 

Thanks again, New England! You've been good to us!