They say that if you lose a sense, your other senses get stronger. For example, if you’re blind, the story goes that you hear better than most people. It seemed apropos, then, that your intrepid reporting team here at Consequence of Sound ended up sharing our hotel for Louisville, Kentucky’s Forecastle Music Festival with an entire convention of blind people: They spend their lives listening hard, and though we’re able to see, we also put a lot of focus on the aural—especially this weekend.
Luckily Forecastle is focused on sound as well, and for their tenth anniversary, they turned on the Kentucky charm with local favorite sons like My Morning Jacket and cellist Ben Sollee. With other popular acts like Deer Tick, Wilco, and Justin Townes Earle, Americana and country rock would’ve been an appropriate theme for the weekend, but the festival also featured plenty of EDM, including music from Flying Lotus and Bassnectar. That split personality makes it hard to sum up the festival accurately, but what can we say? The crowd appeared happy, and while we love a good upright bass, we also danced our faces off to Girl Talk. It may not make sense on paper, but it was freaking awesome.
Our favorite thing about Kentucky, though, might’ve been the sunsets. We’re diehard Chicagoans, don’t get us wrong, but on our inaugural voyage to Louisville, we were struck by the natural beauty of the place. Waterfront Park is maybe a bit small for the festival—the sound from cross-stages bled through pretty badly at times—but it’s awfully pretty, with footpaths over a natural fountain (which you better believe people climbed into) and scenic bridges that span the Ohio River. At night, the sun sets over all of this, and the blaze of colors that ignites the sky is truly awe-inspiring—especially when you’re viewing it from in front of the main stage, listening to Andrew Bird sing about clouds.
So sit back and soak up some aural and some visual goodness (don’t worry, we took lots of photos) from our weekend at Forecastle. It may’ve been our first trip down to Louisville (and it was for a lot of bands too, apparently), but we’ll be coming back real soon, y’all.
-Megan Ritt
Senior Copy Editor
