Nelsonville, nature and nursing: Recapping most of Nelsonville Music Festival

The joke I’ve used in the weeks leading up to Nelsonville goes something like this:

“I don’t camp and I don’t like music festivals, so I decided to camp at a music festival.”

Reactions to that joke vary from debilitating silence to a generous chuckle. Nelsonville turned the joke into a reality, and the annual music celebration in the Ohio Valley might have just turned my views around.

Friday

On Friday, I arrived an hour later than I wanted to, but still a few hours before the first band of the day kicked off the traditional three-day festival. For an additional fee, I could have arrived on Thursday but I was already paying for a weekend ticket, a camp spot that I split with all of my friends and a camping wristband.

I rolled into my camping spot where I would be alone for two days and set up my tent. A friend of mine let me borrow a ton of camping equipment. For this story, we’ll call him Pete. I would be lost at Nelsonville if not for Pete letting me borrow a tent, cooler, solar powered fan, head light and table. The number of times he’s been thanked is not enough.

Pete told me to practice setting up the tent before going to the campground, since I am a novice in the world of camping. So, when I rolled up to my spot, on a slight incline with camp sites only on two sides of me, I thought I hit the jackpot. After I opened the tent for the first time in my life, I stared at the instructions for a good 20 minutes in the shady area next to my car. Once I mustered up the courage to put together a tent for the first time, which went smoother than anticipated and confirmed my decision to not practice, I dried off the fresh layer of flop sweat, applied sunscreen liberally and headed into Nelsonville.

The first thing I did was get the lay of the land. With over an hour until the first set, at the Creekside Stage, I walked every inch of the Snow Fork Event Center, took photos of each stage and planned my day.

If you have not gone to festivals, it involves a lot of math if you want to see all the desired sets. My goal was 15 across the three days. The problem comes with the set overlap. With a new performer kicking off nearly every 30 minutes, tough decisions need to be made. On day one, my “can’t miss” whole sets were reserved for MJ Lenderman and Waxahatchee, the final two acts on the largest stage, named the Howard Stage in honor of longtime volunteer Howard Fokes.

Nelsonville began at the Creekside Stage, the most lowkey of the three performance areas in the festival. Weedghost, an ambient experimental duo, set the vibe of the weekend with a single song spanning over 30 minutes that was the soundtrack of the swaying trees that towered over the area.

Creekside featured the added fun of video recording by the local NPR station, alongside students from Ohio University’s Media Arts and Studies school. That meant hearing the same introduction of the recording process by Josh Antonuccio about 10 times over my time at NMF.

Friday was a light day for me at the Creekside stage. That is because I was moving around a bunch, with temperatures only in the 80s (only).

After I met up with Columbus Calling’s own Chip Midnight at Creekside, we hopped between the two larger stages the rest of the day, mostly. The Porch Stage is the place for fans of music with a little more bite. Nelsonville spans a wide variety of genres and sub-genres, but 2025 did not feature a lot of what you could call “hard” music. No metal. No screaming. No hardcore.

Although there were a few references to death like Friday’s Dehd and Saturday’s Being Dead. Anyway, before David Nance & Mowed Sound hit the Porch Stage, I picked up some NMF merch and I had an epiphany – they gave me a VIP wristband on accident.

I am cheap. I did not buy a VIP wristband. I am also not cheap enough to depend on the venue to give me free access to a concert, because I did not use any sort of media clout to get into NMF. I paid for my ticket, but not the elite VIP tier. Only twice have I received free tickets to a concert for media-like things, and both were for PromoWest shows, so I felt no guilt there whatsoever.

Nelsonville was different. It is a festival that raises money for Stuart’s Opera House in Nelsonville, which is an organization thta provides music programs for students. So, the exact opposite of PromoWest. I did feel guilty each time I went into the VIP area, but I mainly used it as a place to watch the headliners’ sets because the section went right up to the stage for some cool, unimpeded, sightlines.

The thing about NMF is that I did not really need a VIP wristband to see the main stage well. This festival is not like Lollapalooza, my nightmare fuel festival, where there are tens of thousands of people standing guts to butts in the sweltering heat. Plus, the crowds stretch so far back like this that over half of the crowd should have just stayed home and streamed the event because their view would be much better.

A pal of mine did warn me that Nelsonville would eventually become this sort of awful event. Money will infiltrate the event. Bigger name bands will go to it because the other festivals like the aforementioned Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo and SXSW have lost their character.

If Nelsonville’s decline is imminent, there were no signs of it this year. While the bands do love the feeling of Nelsonville, confirmed through a conversation with Colin Miller of MJ Lenderman early Friday where he compared it to his own home in rural North Carolina, the entire weekend was a family-like environment.

People brought their kids, there were dedicated play areas for children and it seemed like everyone was running into all of their friends. Then they were all talking during concerts.

More on Miller. He is not only the drummer of a successful rock band but an accomplished producer, engineer and musician. When I met Miller, I reminded him of all of those things, starting off with his work engineering the newest LP by Florry titled Sounds Like… and realized I should have probably complimented his own music work first because his own 2025 LP Losin’ is right in line with MJ Lenderman, Florry and Wednesday, all bands either coming out of, or working directly alongside, Haw Creek in North Carolina.

Anyway, my surprises of Friday are two-fold. The first is The Bug Club, out of Wales. The two-person band with rotating drummer are guitar-driven indie rock with fun lyrics and an upbeat tempo. In my preparation for NMF, The Bug Club did not grab me by the face and demand attention, although I did like the 2025 release Very Human Features release, their live show brought both the band and their recordings to life.

Due to the timing of sets, I could not see the whole show from The Bug Club, but saw all but maybe one or two songs. Good thing they played at the Campground Stage late Saturday night. I vowed not to miss it.

The other surprise was Waxahatchee. Not because I have not heard her before. Katie Crutchfield is by no means an underground artist. Not at all. From her award-winning solo career to amazing work with Jess Williamson in the band Plains, Crutchfield is downright prolific.

However, you have not really heard Waxahatchee until you hear them live. Full stop. Crutchfield’s voice, forged in Alabama, mesmerizes even more when you hear it live. It also included a brief pitstop by Jake Lenderman of MJ Lenderman for a couple songs, including the single “Right Back to It” off the 2024 Tigers Blood LP. Crutchfield also joined Lenderman during the MJ Lenderman set for “She’s Leaving You,” off Manning Fireworks.

Waxahatchee also thanked the sound person each time she received a new, pre-tuned, guitar. I know that might not mean much, and says more about where my brain is most of the time, but I always look for it from bigger acts. As a means to see if the members of bands are truly nice and considerate people.

They are not only nice, but they play nice music. When I eventually got back to my campsite, I put her music back on and played it loud, in absence of any human interaction. Only my Aldi brand uncrustables, Gatorlyte and cherry Liquid Deaths to keep me nourished.

Quick aside on camping. I’m not an introvert by any means, but I might be an introvert in extrovert’s clothing. I said hi to one person near my car but that was because they said hi to me. No one in the campsites connected to mine acknowledged me as a person worth their time. That is not their fault at all because I did not do the same with them. I should have tried to start up conversation but here I am writing about it so the window is adequately closed.

MJ Lenderman’s set was before Waxahatchee. I did not skip it on purpose. They are fantastic but I also did see them a few weeks prior in Cleveland at the new Globe Iron venue in the flats. MJ Lenderman adds more personality to their live performances, with added guitar experimentation on top of their normal uninterested vibes. I love that their rise has not gone to the band members’ heads, as far as you can see in a concert, but you are not getting backflips or knee slides on guitar solos because that would be weird. Their attitude matches their music, so their performance was appropriate and great.

The fine folks who plan Nelsonville’s music lineups are experts. Putting MJ Lenderman and Waxahatchee back-to-back on the main stage was the easiest and most perfect way to end Friday. Then, on Saturday, the lead-up of country acts flowed perfectly into Charley Crockett. But, what NMF planned after those headline sets were also strokes of genius.

After the closer to mainstream headlining events on Howard’s Stage, the Porch Stage featured bands with a lot more bite who seemingly existed to let the crowd know that the Nelsonville party was by no means over for the night. Dehd was up first and they are as close to a punk band as you will get at the main NMF stages.

Unfortunately, my legs were the same as the band’s name. After I watched a few songs, I hobbled back to my car and tent, which was not far from the stage. I sat and listened to the remainder of the set before heading to the campground stage, seeing that there was no band playing but a DJ set, and going right back to my tent to get some rest.

Saturday

I did not get a lot of rest, despite being adequately tired enough to pass out. What shocked me about camping was that, regardless of a heat advisory coming into the area overnight, it was cold. I also did not pack a blanket.

So, after hours rolling around, and sliding down the slight incline, I slept in the reclined front seat of my toaster for about three hours. Once the sun was up, I was up.

Another aspect of Nelsonville is its connection to nature, and not only walking through mud and the fondly named camping sites’ “mudville” monikers. Saturday morning, I went for a guided hike. After I stood for 10 minutes at camping headquarters, a volunteer told me the hiking group left in a golf cart five minutes prior. My guided hike became a solo hike until I did run into the group.

If I could sum up Nelsonville in one story, this is it:

A local botanist stopped us along the hiking trail every 10-20 yards to see another species of plant. Some of them we ate, some of them we were not supposed to even look at and the group of close to 10 of us stopped and listened intently as we learned about the flora and fauna of Ohio’s little slice of Appalachia.

Of those 10 hikers, one was a mom with a baby in a little Baby Bjorn child holding system on the front of her body. After a couple stops, baby began getting restless, as babies do. I was locked in, as my kids say, to the knowledge of the hike and suddenly the little child whimpers stopped. Not thinking, I looked over and the baby was nursing on the mother, which is beautiful and wild to think what a human body can do. I snapped my head back forward, never to look at the baby and mother again, and, while feeding, the botanist asked us all what we thought something was called and mom, while providing life to another human, said the latin name of the plant.

That is Nelsonville Music Festival.

On our way out of the hike, one of the “hike-in” campers offered us treats in a tackle box full of well-organized snacks that ranged from trail mix to fresh fruit. I chugged a Gatorade, changed my clothes and cleaned up at camp and headed into Nelsonville for day two.

A triple-digit heat index welcomed NMF visitors on Saturday. My plan was to bring my folding chair, which stayed at the car for day one, and set it up at the Creekside stage. The lineup at the stage for Saturday was hard to beat.

My chair parked next to the same tree all day, with only a few treks out of the shade planned. Rosali Middleman, the lead singer of Rosali who I missed play on Friday, started Saturday with her solo, electric guitar music. No singing, only vibes. Under the name Edsel Axel, which Middleman told the crowd would have been her name if she were born a boy, Middleman used effects and skillful ad-libbing on the electric guitar for a handful of songs.

The performance was the best way to cool down, close my eyes and enjoy its marriage of sound to the rustling of branches and leaves with each rare breeze.

I did not leave the Creekside Stage for three hours. After Edsel Axel was Jordan Smart, an Ohioan by birth, former hitchhiker, who now lives with his partner and daughter in Northern Kentucky. I saw Smart open for Willi Carlisle in Kentucky earlier this year and Smart stole the show.

Smart did the same thing at Nelsonville.

The singer/songwriter does not beat around the bush when it comes to his lyrics. Each one a commentary about either immigration, greed, a free Palestine or war. Plus, a couple more personal songs about moving back to Ohio when he found out he was going to have a child, the generational alcoholism that scares Smart in his own job as a father.

Like I said earlier, kudos if you’re still here, Ohio University students were in charge of filming the sets at the Creekside Stage. During Smart’s song about alcoholism and the apple not falling far from the tree, one of the camera operators was crying. I will not lie to you, dear reader, I noticed it because I was too.

There are bands and performers that you see playing to smaller crowds, or lower down a bill, and you think “they should be much bigger.” Smart is the representation of that feeling. Not only because the themes of the songs are nuggets of compassion that nearly everyone in this world needs, but the songsmanship, lyrics and overall energy flowing out of Smart when he plays shows that he is doing exactly what he’s meant to do in this world. Not a lot of people can say that confidently.

Smart received a standing ovation. The only one I saw at the Creekside Stage. Once his performance goes up on WOUB’s YouTube page, please watch it. I know I will.

Styrafoam Winos followed Smart, a trio who rotates instruments after each song, playing poppy DIY rock music that is catchy and all-in-all a fun time. However, I had to leave soon after their set to the merciless sun to see Two Runner at Howard’s Stage.

Two Runner is Paige Anderson and Emilie Rose, a duo playing mountain music born in Northern California. Anderson began performing bluegrass music at nine years old, with Anderson Family Bluegrass. In traditional country music circles, Anderson received praise early on in her life because of her guitar playing abilities. Now as the songwriter, banjo and guitar player for Two Runner, Anderson plays alongside Rose on fiddle for music that sinks into you as you listen.

“Late Dinner,” the single off the band’s first release on Gar Hole Records under the same name, features Anderson’s driving vocals and Rose’s harmony.

“Woah oh oh, I wish you were here,

So we can make a late dinner, sing songs all night long,

Woah oh oh, I wish you were mine,

Where is the one I want, I hope he never disappears”

They also play fast bluegrass tracks that make you dance, and asked the crowd politely to do so despite the horrible temperatures. Thankfully the crowd was well-hydrated and obliged. Now that I think about it, I did not see a single person fall out due to the heat in my time at NMF. Does that mean it did not happen? Of course not, but I am proud of the amount of water folks drank.

Anderson and Rose played together as Two Runner for five years now. The two give off an energy of synchronicity on stage that not every band possesses. Watch the two closely and certain unexpected movements cause the other person to laugh or smile. Rose will dip while playing a part on the fiddle and Anderson smiled and scrunched up her nose in approval. Fun and family. That is Two Runner.

I snuck back to the Creekside Stage for the next two sets, or at least part. Watchhouse was on the main stage later so after watching traditional music duo Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman, and when I mean traditional I mean Civil War-era country and folk music, and a little bit of Esther Rose, I cut out.

When you leave the Creekside Stage, you get more of the friendly NMF atmosphere because anyone can leave their chair or blanket and know it will be in the same place when they come back.

Before I left, I offered my chair to a guy who sat next to me, against the trunk of a tree. It came with the understanding that I get my chair back when I return. He signed off on the deal and introduced himself to me. I went in for a handshake and he went into a fist bump. Then we each switched to what the other person did, and it created one of those awkward social interactions in which anyone can relate. He replied “that’s why we’re both here alone.” A painful truth.

An important goal on Saturday was to see Bonnie Prince Billy on Saturday night. The Creekside Stage transforms at night, as trees are lit and twinkle lights hang over the festivalgoers. Add a legend like Billy to the equation and it was a “can’t miss” scenario.

Bonnie Prince Billy was also at Nelsonville as the curator of the celebration of Michael Hurley’s life. When the “Godfather of folk music’s underground,” passed on April 1 of this year, the longtime NFM staple became a focal point of many artists over the Nelsonville Festival weekend.

The Creekside Stage itself was decorated with the art of Michael Hurley and it transported people into Hurley’s world with a bar scene which included animals drawn in Hurley’s style. Musicians entered stage through the swinging saloon doors of “Snock’s Tavern,” honoring the frequent use of “Snock” by Hurley in his art over his 83 years on Earth.

Billy toured with Hurley and was a friend, so his addition to the NMF lineup, and playing on its smallest stage, was not to disrespect the legend of Billy but as a way to respect the legend of Hurley. During Billy’s hour set at the Creekside Stage, his beautiful folk melodies honestly stunned the crowd. I looked around during a couple songs and nobody had their phone out taking a picture of video. Not a single person. That is not an exaggeration either.

Like Waxahatchee the night before, Billy’s voice live is required listening for any music fan.

Through the set, the multi-faceted singer, complete with a blue and white polka dot cap, shared stories of his life, which included one from a tour with Hurley gone wrong. An outdoor show got moved inside an Amish family barn due to storms. Billy looked up at the show and saw girls staring down at likely the first outdoor music infiltrating their lives.

Billy also played two of Hurley’s songs to practice for Sunday’s celebration of Hurley’s life.

I packed up and headed to Howard’s Stage for Charley Crockett, a contemporary country artist in the same vein as Sturgill Simpson or Tyler Childers. Crockett rolled into Nelsonville for his Lonesome Drifter tour, led by two semitrucks and more stage production than any other artist at the festival.

Crockett played in front of a huge, lit up, sign that spelled out his name. On stage globe bulbs lined the front and around an elevated stage for additional guitar, drum and keyboards.

The headliners had an hour and a half each evening, and I loved every second of Crockett’s time on stage.

At the same time as NMF, Buckeye Country Fest took place up in Columbus. It’s a concert with the biggest names in mainstream country. Crockett does not really fit into that crowd, although his music has similarities. However, he writes his own music and there is an edge you do not get from what I call “red solo cup” country.

A rural Texan who spent a lot of his life in New Orleans, and lived on floors and couches in countries across the world, plays music that sounds exactly like that but with a band that is wearing matching outfits and look like a country band from the 50s or 60s.

Crockett is about as real as they come for folks who make his kind of country music. Despite the gravity of his show, he still does things off the stage like sharing videos on social media about how musicians are the perfect people to talk politics, due to all of their traveling and meeting fans of all walks of life. Then there is the contest Crockett has to give away a car in a raffle that benefits Kentucky bluesman Nat Myers. Myers is in a current battle with a rare sarcoma, a type of cancer, and Crockett, seemingly out of nowhere, used his influence to help Myers beat it.

On stage, Crockett is full of life. His deep, rattling, country voice makes way for dance moves learned on the streets of New Orleans, certain songs where he will sing with a unique lisp and throwing in autobiographical pieces between songs.

At one point, Crockett brought up his beliefs. I did not write his words down verbatim but it went something like this”

People ask him if he leans right or left. People say he’s not country enough. People say he’s not blues enough. All of that is up for the listener to decide.

Crockett is himself and is doing well with it.

After the show, he showed he is not too big to come over and sign autographs for a teenage fan with a poster. When another fan asked him if he wanted a beer, he responded “are the Kennedys gun-shy?”

With all the sitting on Saturday, my legs were rested for the after-festival sets. I got front row for The Bug Club, and this time stayed for the entire set. Post-festival, they are the band I have listened to the most. Their songs about marriage, telling people who talk about boring things to shut up and people who only watch war movies resonated with me. Not because I watch war movies, but mainly because I know those kinds of people.

On my list of 15 bands I needed to see was Dana. Funny enough, they are a local Columbus band but I just never seem to line my calendar up to see them. So, I traveled an hour to watch a band who has played my town multiple times over the years.

Fresh off their new Clean Living LP, lead singer Madeline Jackson and guitarist Chris Lute propel a five-piece band playing loud and fast post punk. Self-labeled as “avant garage” music, Dana’s live performance turns up every notch. I am sure there were folks at their campsites afraid of what was coming out of the Campground Stage, and I say that as a compliment.

Jackson does not stop moving on stage, and often jumps off. When Jackson plays the theremin, the singer wraps the microphone cord around her neck and throws on sunglasses. Lute plays barefoot on a carpet and adds different effects to bring the band’s recorded sound to life live.

Accompanied by bass, drums and saxophone, Dana also turned one of the festival’s rare mosh pits up levels too. Unfortunately, it was a lot of young folks who did not look too experienced in a mosh pit. Jackson reprimanded the children early, demanding that when someone falls that other people pick them up, using well-placed expletives to really drive it home.

Then there was the light show. Dana played with a projector shining over the entire stage. At the back of the large tent, a camera hung over a bowl of different dyed liquids making the effects on stage. Plus, a random batch of videos the effects person could loop in.

I got back to my car around 2:30 a.m. on Sunday. I fully intended to stay on Sunday, at least through the first few acts. My biggest regret is I did none of that. When I got back to my campsite, I passed out in my driver’s seat for four hours, woke up, packed up and went home.

That meant no Hurley honoring, no Moe Reen, no Taj Mahal. It’s not only my biggest regret but really my only regret of the weekend. I ended up seeing 13 of the 15 sets I wanted to see and 24 overall in two days.

For not liking camping or festivals before the weekend, Nelsonville changed my mind, at least about going back to Nelsonville. Next time, I’ll bring a blanket.