Greg Tiburzi playing the Duluth Dylan Fest 2024 Front Porch Birthday Party. Photos by Jill Fisher.

Festiversary is a joyous community event, this year celebrating Bent Paddle’s 11^th anniversary. I was so glad that the calendar dates did not overlap with the Duluth Dylan Fest this year so that I was able to attend the gathering. 

Billed as an Outdoor Beer Festival and Block Party it felt mostly like a music festival with a full line up of excellent acts. 

Tres Osos got the party started at 2 pm on this fine Duluth afternoon. The three members of Tres Osos – Tim Leutgeb (acoustic guitar), Ian Kvale (bass) and Nicholas Klee (mandolin) – were backed by the “Bent Paddle Band” that consisted of Colin Mullen (electric guitar), Isiah Jorgenson (acoustic guitar), Adam Herman (electric guitar) and Andrew Spilde (drums), later spelled by Owen Mahon. 

They played a number of covers with which I was unfamiliar, one by John Michael Montgomery. All that matters is that they were having great fun, had a super sound and got the crowd warmed up and ready to rumble.

The two-stage setup at Bent Paddle had a temporary “Main Stage” erected in the parking lot west of the regular seasonal outdoor stage area. The arrangement made for plenty of non-stop music. 

The lineup included a new find for me and others I spoke with: The Foxgloves from Minneapolis, which was the second act that afternoon. This six-member all-female band, whose music has been categorized as Americana and bluegrass, had a unique combination of traditional and not-so-traditional instruments. 

Foxgloves

Members are Maura Dunst (fiddle, mandolin), Liz DeYoe (acoustic guitar), Sara Tinklinberg (vocals, percussion), Steph Snow (ukelele, banjolele, washboard, vocals), Nyssa Krausse (standup bass) and Duluth native Nikki LeMire (harp, autoharp, vocals). It was the classic floor harp that I was astounded and pleased to see included in what was a truly rockin’ band. 

Sadly, this was the last gig Nikki was to play with the band according to an announced on it’s website.

The Foxgloves’ three-part harmony imbued their female-oriented song lyrics with soulful depth. Who needs a male to provide low resonant tones? They’ve got Snow! And Snow brought a jugband sound to one of their songs with her enthusiastic washboard percussion. This was no cover band; these were mostly original tunes off  their most recent album Mama Was a Bandit. The lyrics of the title track took the listener to an alternate reality where women are as badass as any man and it brought to mind the movie Thelma and Louise. These were energetic compositions that had me and others jumping. Two songs, “Wild River Honey” and “Carolina” were particularly engaging. 

LeMire sang lead vocals on “Hometown” in recognition of this being her farewell performance with the group. Even with this loss, I would love to see The Foxgloves again and may just do so in the near future since they will be performing at Festival Rialto in Grand Rapids on Saturday, June 8.

Four other bands followed to round out the afternoon and evening shows at Bent Paddle: Baharat, Saltydog (joined by Eric Berry), Boxcar and finally Chase & Ovation!, a Prince tribute band. 

Since I’ve written about each of these except the latter, which I unfortunately missed, this will have to do for my coverage of this year’s Festiversary. But wait! Caddy Shack tagged onto the festivities with its own shows later that evening – Blu Volta and A Band Called Truman. When the vibe gets going it’s really hard to wind it down and those two bands provided a fun-packed musical finale to a beautiful Duluth day.

Following hard on Festiversary was a fairly impromptu day-long benefit for native Duluthian Rose Hoene at Mr. D’s on Sunday, May 19. 

Organized by Marvin Pomeroy with the help of several others, it was something of an old home week bringing out long-time local musicians who have known and played with Hoene as far back as the 1960s. 

Among the contributing performers were John & Andy, the Centerville All Stars, Kate and Bill Isles, the Fishheads, Janie & the Spokes, Jim Hall, and Paul Metsa’s new band, Tilt Town Titans with Taylor Shykes (bass guitar), Ian Hopp (drums) and Al Oikari of Big Wu fame (keys). I especially enjoyed Metsa’s song “Robots on Death Row” which showed off his blues chops. We even got to hear Rose cover “White Bird” accompanied by Bill Isles. This day felt like a whole other music festival!

Then of course it was Bob Dylan’s birthday on May 24, this year falling on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, which is the seminal reason for Duluth Dylan Fest. It was pared down from last year’s bash and no less of an exciting time for that. 

The kick-off event, the Dylan jam and sing-along at Carmody Irish Pub on Tuesday, May 21, by all reports was a groovy interactive scene. Although I missed attending it this year, I heard there was a good turnout to join various singers on chosen Dylan songs. Notably, Jim Hall was one of those who made the evening memorable.

Among the traditional offerings of DDF was the Basement Tapes Band, the featured event on Wednesday, May 22. A nasty weather forecast prompted organizers to move their show from the Earth Rider festival grounds indoors to Cedar Lounge (thereby curtailing Misisipi Mike’s residency gig to just a couple of songs). 

Basement Tapes Band

This is a once-a-year put-together band consisting of Marc Gartman (lead guitar, vocals), Teague Alexy (guitar, harmonica, vocals), Sarah Krueger (vocals), Jacob Mahon (keyboard, vocals), Lee Martin (pedal steel guitar), Veikko Lepisto (bass guitar) and Tyler Dubla (drums). Man, this is a fabulous group of players who play some deep cuts together with some better known tunes off the eponymous album by Dylan and The Band, such as “The Mighty Quinn” that had everyone singing along on the choruses. 

It’s a crying shame that BTB gets together only once a year for this gig.

With the Willie Nelson concert at Bayfront Park on Thursday, DDF took a break to avoid a conflicting event. Then on Friday, Bob’s birthday, the traditional celebration with front porch performance by Greg Tiburzi was held at the former Zimmerman home. Approximately 50 Dylan fanatics huddled together in the windy and chilling 45-degree weather to commemorate the date Duluth’s native son was born. (Virtually identical weather to that of last year’s birthday party.) 

Though Tiburzi opined that this typical Duluth weather was appropriate to the occasion, I escaped midway through the gig to a warmer place. I am not sure how he managed to move his fingers to play guitar in that cold. It was here we recognized those folks who came from far and wide to participate in DDF; this year a man from Ireland and another from Maine, in addition to the usual number of out-of-town Midwesterners, were among us.

That Friday evening was the usual Singer-Songwriter Contest at Sacred Heart Music Center. We were treated to 12 contestants, more than half of whom came from outside the Twin Ports to participate (Plymouth, Minneapolis, Cottage Grove, Monticello and Beaver Falls, Minnesota and Bayfield, Wisconsin). 

Singer-Songwriter contest winners: Rick Bruner, Austin Castle, Eddie Burke.

It was a special evening where not only did we get to hear interesting original compositions by the participants but also their renditions of classic Dylan tunes. 

One musician, Dave Ujke, performed the lesser known number “You’re a Big Girl Now” while Dominic Acito (who happens to share Bob’s birthday) chose “Mississippi” and demonstrated a virtuosic picking style. 

A new slate of jurors for this competition included past winner Shane Nelson; musicians Jamie Ness and Geno LaFond; Christine Dean, music director at The North 103.3 FM radio; and writer and poet Tina Higgins Wussow. This year’s winners were: first place Austin Castle with his song “River Bottom Roads,” second place Rick Bruner for “Sara Jane” and third place Eddy Burke for “Fall From the Garden.” I also found out that one of my picks, Climes (Drew Anderson) came in fourth with his number, “Chattanooga.”

After tours of the historic building now named the Duluth Armory Arts and Music Center on Saturday morning, DDF attendees regrouped at Wussow’s Concert Café for the John Bushey Memorial Lecture. 

This event was actually a panel discussion with four contributing authors to the recently published book, Bob Dylan in Minnesota—Troubadour Tales from Duluth, Hibbing and Dinkytown: Ed Newman, Paul Metsa, Marc Percansky and Matt Streichen. 

This was something for those true Dylan fans that can’t get enough background on him. It was a boisterous discussion that went in several directions, teasing out the real life connections between Dylan’s experiences and his lyrics. Some time was spent on each of the authors’ reminiscences of and connections to the man. 

That Saturday evening it was off to another West Duluth establishment, Mr. D’s, to enjoy the DDF Dance Party with Cowboy Angel Blue. Suffice it to say, it was a fun time with lots of folks finally getting out onto the dance floor to boogie to many Dylan hits (including one of my favorites, “Things Have Changed”), along with some Neil Young, Chuck Berry, Rolling Stones tunes plus several surfer guitar solos. 

Wrapping up this year’s DDF was the usual “Farewell Brunch” on Sunday. Greg Tiburzi was back to sing a whole other bunch of Dylan tunes, at times with the added harmonica accompaniment of Pat Eliason. Here we got to hear some “deeper cuts” or lesser known songs by Dylan such as “Moonlight” with some of more iconic numbers sprinkled in (“Blowin’ In The Wind,” “Tangled Up In Blue” and “She Belongs To Me”). 

One of the gratifying aspects of listening to Tiburzi cover Dylan is you are able to understand the lyrics, something one is not always able to do, which makes for a great appreciation of the Nobel Prize Winner for Literature’s writings.

The five-day DDF compared favorably to last year’s eight-day event. (The headline of my review of that was “Can there be too much Dylan?”) This year there was less repetition of the standard Dylan songs and less stress by week’s end. 

The one aspect I missed was the creation of an iron gate to be auctioned off, which I had hoped to bid on. It may be that when next year’s celebration is planned, one or more of the traditional events could be dropped in favor of adding something new and different to the mix. I guess we’ll see about that. 

In the meantime, get out and enjoy the many upcoming outdoor music events slated for the warmer months ahead.

Upcoming: On Friday, May 31, Russ Sackett’s Release Party for his Debut CD/album Time Is Short will be at Blacklist Brewing Co. The Mahon Brothers and Woodblind will perform there as well. The action starts at 7:30 pm. See you there!