Get On Down to the River: River Revival Music Fest, Starting Today

I’ve been sadly remiss in posting about it before now, which sucks, but I wanted to at least give a big-ass thumbs-up to the excellent-sounding River Revival Music Festival, which starts today, Thursday, September 27th, and runs through this Sunday, September 30th.

Unlike your average, plain-jane music festival, the River Revival — founded by the ever-sharp Splice Records crew — doesn’t happen in some big city park or on a broiling-hot stadium parking lot. Nope, none of that here; rather, this thing happens down by the Guadalupe River over at the KL Ranch Camp in New Braunfels, where a thousand or so people all camp out, break bread together, listen to music, float in the river, and just chill.

The ticket price includes all meals, prepared by some seriously awesome chefs, the campsite (there’re different areas for families, RVs, etc.), and access to the river, plus nature walks hosted by naturalist/storm-chaser/rocker Pecos Hank, kayaking, fun kid stuff courtesy of AndyRoo, yoga, art installations, and — obviously — a crap-ton of awesome music.

I’ve got to admit that the idea of camping out at a music festival has never appealed to me. It just seems muddy and noisy and, well, I like my nice, comfy bed and don’t actually like people all that much. Don’t get me wrong; I love camping in general, but I like doing it somewhere where I’m not going to be surrounded by 500 dudebros who like stay up drinking ’til 4AM and then leave broken glass all over the place.

This, though, sounds pretty different. For one thing, it’s pretty clear the organizers have put a whole lot of thought into how a festival like this should be run, and it sounds like they go out of their way to make families with kids welcome.

Beyond that, the sheer range of non-music/-drinking activities is astounding, just going by the itinerary posted on the Website. Don’t want to stand around listening to music? Go build a float for the Saturday float parade. Go on one of those nature walks I mentioned. Get a pedicure with John Evans (no, seriously). Thumb-wrestle the guys from Buxton (ditto). Learn survival skills from VODI‘s Haley Lynch (!!!). Throw washers. Learn about bees at a bee workshop. Join in the scavenger hunt. Or just, y’know, get in an inner tube and float while listening to some badass bands.

Which brings me to one of the other things I like best about the River Revival, which is the bands, and the very noticeable focus on Texas bands. Looking back, most of the best times I had at the Free Press Summer Fest were in the early days, when it was affordable, when I knew all my friends would be there, and when the bands that played were largely from Houston, Austin, or Dallas, with only a couple of headliners thrown in.

It was fun, it was low-key, and it was just more like a community — not just a gigantic sweaty mass of drunk college kids. Plus, it was affordable, and this new festival is, too; $100 per person for just Saturday, $195 for Friday & Saturday, and $250 for the whole weekend, and kids under 10 are free.

So I’m super psyched to see a whole lot of bands I love on the bill, like headlining band The Suffers, who are my hometown soul heroes, cool roots-rock dudes Folk Family Revival, traveling poppy singer/songwriter Arthur Yoria, Austin soul outfit Tomar and the FCs (about whom I’ve heard many good things), the aforementioned folky/rootsy popsters Buxton, also-aforementioned Elvis-gone-country troubadour John Evans, psych-rockers Flower Graves, and laidback folkies Ancient Cat Society, to name only a handful.

And how cool is the thought of hanging out by a freaking campfire while Craig Kinsey (among others) plays and sings and rambles about whatever? In my book, pretty goddamn cool.

I know there’s been a glut of music festivals over this last decade or so; I know a number of ’em have begun to die off. And I think part of the reason why is that they’re already something we’re used to, y’know? I remember going to Lollapalooza in the early years — it was cool in part because, well, it was a lot harder to listen to or see those bands otherwise, but also because it was new and different. It was strange and kinda daring (at the time), and you never knew what you might witness.

The River Revival strikes me as being a new kind of thing in the same way; it’s not like most other music festivals, and I think that’s a really, really neat thing. A music festival should be something you look back at and think, “wow, that was really something amazing,” rather than, “yeah, I saw some cool bands and then drove home.” Go for the “really something amazing” — I think you can still get tickets for this weekend and get on down to the river.

In case you still need convincing, here’s the recap video from last year, which looks like the biggest but most-chill Texas river party ever:

Sadly, I can’t make it this time around, but damn, I’m seriously thinking about dragging the family over to the Guadalupe for next year’s Revival…