The Washington Post Over the next six months, the region stretching from North Carolina to Pennsylvania will turn into Festival Country. Festivals are concerts with amplitude and, sometimes, attitude.
Most festivals are family-oriented, a canny combination of art, frolic and information.
You may be at a blues festival, but you'll probably hear a raucous mix of acoustic or electric instrumentation, strains of Chicago, Texas or Mississippi Delta blues, performed by venerated elders and young pups. The largest free jazz festival on the East Coast honors a legendary trumpeter who died almost 50 years ago. Anyone attending this jamfest gets a free tree in honor of Earth Day and Arbor Day. In fact, some folks never see an onstage performance at a bluegrass festival. They go to play rather than to listen.