WKNC and Friends at the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival

WKNC and friends from WXJM went and represented WKNC at the Shakori Hills Grassroots festival in Pittsboro, NC. While this is not the usual pitstop for me when looking for new jazz, I really enjoyed getting to participate in the music and dance culture at Shakori. The love one another and the Earth atmosphere that is present at Shakori is entirely overwhelming, but in the best of ways. Shakori consisted of four main stages, two of which were partly devoted to large dance acts. Two smaller stage areas were devoted to all-day yoga and body centering, and arts and crafts.

Some surprising musical acts including March Fourth!, Big Mean Sound Machine from NOLA, The Wood Brothers (Chris Wood on bass of Medeski Martin and Wood), and the AJ Ghent Band made appearances. The obvious home favorite, Donna the Buffalo, made four appearances that I could count. Even KNC favorite Towers graced Shakori for a performance that included some acrobatics, stage dives, and a surprise set of all Green Day songs.

All day there were crafts, games, great food and drink. My personal favorite was a combination dinner of Korean barbeque and desert crepes.While we were staffing the WKNC booth during the day, our KNC staff was delighted to meet many interesting people. We had an endless flow of people on non-profit row that were drawn to the circus-like activities in front of the KNC tent that included Chinese yo-yos and poi spinning. However, they stayed for the free swag, conversation, sometimes shade, and at one point, an improv jam session. Thanks to DJ CJ we had a five piece banjo, mandolin, guitar, djembe, and vocals group running for about an hour on Friday.

Late in the evening, you could always find a drum circle at the dance tent to participate in or a fire circle to practice fire poi at. We even learned a little salsa and swing dancing. We did all of it.

At the end of a long evening, we grabbed some pizza from NY-favorite Salvatore's Pizza and headed to the Vinyl Lounge where a DJ spins an eclectic mix of all musical genres late into the morning.

We could not have had a better time at Shakori even though it was an absolute pig sty by the

end of the first musical set. I will definitely be returning to Shakori in the fall, and I encourage any and everyone who loves well-developed live music, dance, and love to attend as well. See you all at the next Shakori, and stay tuned for more festival pix, videos, and music.