What the folk? Remembering Wheatland, a #threetunestuesday post

A short distance away from the geographical center of the lower peninsula of Michigan is a magical place called Wheatland. All you have to do is take US 127 North from the border of Michigan and exit in Mt. Pleasant, check out Central Michigan University and the Soaring Eagle Casino and then hop on M-20 heading West.

Eventually you will pass through the small town of Remus and just a little past that you will find yourself in the middle of farm fields. Welcome to Wheatland!

Wheatland is a music organization that celebrates folk and traditional arts. They have events all year, but in early September every year they have huge festival that brings people in from all over the state and world.

The history of Wheatland is pretty long as far as the US is concerned. Anything that has been going on for 50 years is pretty old over here. I know it's just a drop in the bucket compared to the history over in Europe, but we work with what we have.

It's been a long time since I went to Wheatland, but for a period of about four or five years I went religiously every year. Wheatland is more than just a festival, it's a community of like minded individuals just looking to have a good time and enjoy some good music.

No running water, no electricity, campers and tents virtually stacked on top of each other, copious amounts of booze and recreational pharmaceuticals. It's one of the most chill places I have probably ever been in my life.

I have some photos I was thinking about sharing, but I think most of them are not in digital format and it is probably better to keep them to myself anyway. As I said, given the path that life eventually took me on, I haven't been back to Wheatland in years, but I thought today might be a good day to share some of the bands I saw in those five years at Wheatland.

So here you go, for my #threetunetuesday sponsored by @ablaze, I am making you all official "Wheaties" (first time Wheatland visitors) and taking you to Wheatland.

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Hopefully the fact that Wheatland is a traditional and folk arts festival gave away the fact that I would be sharing some bluegrass and folk music today. If not, and you don't care for that kind of music, you might just want to move along. If you want to check out some interesting new bands though stick around!.

I'm also not going to pretend I remember a lot about each of these songs. If you are questioning why, please refer back to the booze and recreational pharmaceuticals line above.

I do remember that King Wilkie performed one year if not multiple years that I attended Wheatland. Actually, you will find that many of these artists travel a circuit that takes them to the same festivals every year or every couple of years.

I have vendor I work with who used to attend Wheatland pretty regularly. Eventually, him and his wife stopped visiting because the festival just got too big for them. They used to go when it first started and it was much smaller and easier to handle. These days, it's just massive.

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If you had to listen to just one artist from the ones that I am sharing here, I would probably encourage you to give The Mammals a chance. This song has a strong resemblance to the first one I shared, but if you really dig into their stuff, they have some really great acoustic ballads that can really give you some feels.

I think it's interesting that both of these songs are about roads because the road to Wheatland is an interesting one. As I said, it's out in the middle of nowhere, and the festival grounds use to be farm fields. They sit off an old dirt road and many people line up outside the gates before they officially open.

I'm not kidding, cars will be backed up for miles up to 12 hours before the gates officially open. It's like one big pre-party.

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One of the coolest bands I ever saw at Wheatland was a Cajun band called Charivari. The way Wheatland is set up, they have the main stage and then two smaller stages. One of those stages is a dance hall and the other one is just a small stage.

Every year, they usually have a band that is tailor made for people to dance to. That was the role that Charivari played one of the years I was there. During the day, they band would run through their songs and teach people the dance moves for them. Then, later that night they would play a full set and you could test out your skills at the Cajun two step (or whatever) you learned earlier that day.

It's pretty cool.

Probably one of my funniest memories of Wheatland happened near the dance hall. I was walking around with a beer in my hand (and possibly high) when I ran into a group of people from my church. My church is pretty strict, so I was probably violating about five different "rules" at that point, but the people didn't seem to care. They actually were more shocked than me. We ended up spending a few hours together listening to some great music. In fact, although I stopped attending Wheatland, last I knew, they were still going every year.

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Finally, I am going to give you a bonus track from a band called Grasshoppah. They were pretty awesome the one time I saw them. In fact, all of these bands were so good that I purchased one of their CDs from the merch area at the festival. I still have them stored away in a box somewhere to this day.

If you dig this kind of music, I highly recommend you check out Wheatland some day. They have a Sunday pass that gets you in for the last day of the festival if you want to skip all of the other activities. That might be what I would do if I ever went back. I don't think I could keep up for a whole weekend like I used to be able to!

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced