Heard him at the Lake Eden Arts Festival with Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet:



Left to right: Béla Fleck (banjo), Abigail Washburn (banjo and voice), Ben Sollee (cello), and Casey Driessen (violin)

He also played a solo show earlier and he's pretty fucking amazing for a 24 year old cello/singer. His album is "Learning to Bend"

http://www.myspace.com/bensollee

"Bury Me With My Car" is awesome. So is "A Change is Gonna Come". The Sparrow Quartet is pretty great too. Bluegrass/Chinese Fusion. I've always been a big Fleck fan so this is pretty awesome. Mainly because i was 20 feet from the front of the stage and everyone was sitting down. Anyone else know what i'm talking about?

12/7/2008 1:59:00 AM

Cool..

Thanks. I have liked Bela Fleck for years as well as his recent incarnation with Abigail Washburn, but I haven't ever heard this fella, Ben Sollee.

I like it.

Also, I been eyeing that festival for a few years..

How was it?

12/7/2008 3:17:18 PM

The festival is amazing. I've been going ever since i was little, and the last 5 years i've been volunteering. 8 hours of volunteering gets you a free $130 weekend ticket. In my opinion it's much more low-key and eclectic than most other music festivals. There's rock, jazz, bluegrass... pretty much anything. Plus they have a ton of vendors and a bunch of good food. There's probably less than 10k people there so it's not that crowded. Everything is right around where you camp too, so no long treks to see music/eat.

http://www.theleaf.com

Here was october's line-up:
http://www.theleaf.com/performers.php

Very diverse stuff. I mean they had The Shangri-La Chinese Acrobats, who were awesome, and this Australian band, Harper, who plays some amazing harmonica, "Blues Fusion from Australia". You can go and hear almost any type of music you want.

I mean they even had western Mongolian Throat singers. Was awesome.

[Edited on December 7, 2008 at 9:38 PM. Reason : .]

12/7/2008 9:29:35 PM

Let me ask you this, is it families or kids partying?

I got a family is why I ask.

12/7/2008 11:11:02 PM

^Oh yeah. You'll feel right at home. It's very family oriented. They have kids activities, a kids art section:

http://www.theleaf.com/kidsandfamilies.php

But then they also have the all night drum circle, adult poetry slam, and lots of reasonably priced draft/bottled beer.

12/7/2008 11:51:10 PM