The three days of peace, love, and music that is the Newport Folk Festival were graced by beautiful summer weather and another strong lineup, anchored by its Saturday and Sunday headliners, punk rock legend Patti Smith and blues rock stirrers Alabama Shakes. Those still laboring under the notion that Newport Folk is, well, predominantly filled with folk acts might be surprised to see how this venerable music fest -- the oldest in the country -- has reinvented itself in recent years. Festival organizer Jay Sweet’s definition of "folk" seems to have been expanded to cover just about anyone who plays really good music. If you happen to use an acoustic guitar to do so, all the better -- but that clearly is no longer a requirement. Let’s not let a silly thing like genre stand in the way of putting together a stellar festival, shall we.
Here are the 10 best things we saw at this year’s festival. They may or may not be the 10 best sets of the weekend, for there were some very good moments we weren’t able to catch in a very busy three days, but they were the 10 best we saw and they were pretty damn good.
Alabama Shakes
It’s hard to beat the vibe at sunset on the third and final day of Newport Folk Fest. You’d have to really mangle your set to have people turn askance. On a midsummer Sunday, with the high heat of the day gone and the sun setting across Narragansett Bay, Fort Adams State Park is a beautiful place to be. Alabama Shakes’ Brittany Howard looked out at the crowd at the start of their festival-closing set and said, “Here’s the deal. You’re going to give something to me. And we’re going to give something to you.” They proceeded to tear through a 15-song set that alternated between blues, hard rock, jazz and gospel, all flavored by Howard’s distinctive voice. There was a stretch late in the set — on songs like “Joe” and “Gimme All Your Love” and “I Don’t Want to Fight No More” — when they really did seem to be, in the words of Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, “the best band in America.” They brought the members of Dawes out for a final song, a cover of Bob Seger’s “Night Moves,” that was just a tiny bit better than perfect.