Friday’s opening salvo of the Trufant festival had folks smiling thanks to sets by Barbarossa Brothers, Nathan Walton & The Remedy, The Bootstrap Boys, Local Commuters and more.
Perfect Festival Weather: Barbarossa Brothers helped fire up Smiling Acres on Friday night. (Photo/Local Spins)
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When traveling the back roads near the tiny Montcalm County community of Trufant, there’s always the worry of getting off-track amid the farms, meadows and woods, especially when GPS isn’t much help in this remote area and radio reception is scratchy.
So, finally arriving safely at Smiling Acres Music Festival can feel like a welcome oasis in the hinterlands – a musical paradise sprouting in the middle of nowhere with a sea of tents, campers and hundreds of smiling faces reveling in top-drawer regional music.
Wild Honey Collective: The band played the new second stage. (Photo/Anna Sink)
The second-year festival unfurled Friday amid temperatures in the 80s, a welcome breeze and mostly overcast skies that did nothing to darken the mood or verve of musicians and festivalgoers who cheered sets by Erin Zindle & The Ragbirds, The Bootstrap Boys, Jen Sygit, Barbarossa Brothers, Tyler Sjostrom, Nathan Walton & The Remedy and more.
“It feels good,” Mark Lavengood, one of the festival organizers, said as evening set in, following particularly bracing performances by Saginaw/Bay City-area “bayou folk-rock” band Barbarossa Brothers and the bluesy, passionate rock ensemble Nathan Walton & The Remedy.
Lavengood — whose band plays the Main Stage at 5:15 p.m. today (Saturday) – spent much of Friday dashing to and fro, putting out the usual first-day fires when it comes to minor glitches and crises that always emerge at multi-day camping events with dozens of performances on two stages, along with late-night “fireside acoustic” sessions. The festival continues Saturday and Sunday; day passes are $35 and available at smilingacres.org.
Happy Fans: The scene at Smiling Acres on Friday. (Photo/Holly Holtzclaw)
With an influx of more attendees in 2022, Lavengood conceded it was nice to see fresh faces discovering Smiling Acres for the first time. “I feel like there’s a lot of newbies here,” he remarked.
The same held true for performers, who included first-timers Zindle and her crew from Ann Arbor, and Sjostrom, a one-time Chicago-area resident who now makes his home in Virginia.
By the time Grand Rapids’ Bootstrap Boys unleashed rousing vintage country material from an upcoming new album late Friday night, well-fueled fans were dancing gleefully in front of the stage. Indeed, the overall vibe at the intimate festival for veterans and newbies alike was upbeat and appreciative of the ability to gather as a community for live music in Michigan’s great outdoors after a stifling COVID pandemic.
Lansing-area singer-songwriter Jen Sygit, who performed with keyboardist Mike Lynch, may have put it best when introducing a song from her 2018 album, “It’s About Time.”
“It’s about time for these music festivals again, that’s how I feel,” she quipped.
The feeling was certainly mutual.
PHOTO GALLERY: Smiling Acres Music Festival (Day 1)
Photos by Anna Sink, Holly Holtzclaw, John Sinkevics
VIDEO: Day 1 at Smiling Acres 2022
Copyright 2022, Spins on Music LLC
