What The Newport Folk Festival Means To Me

This is now my third Newport Folk Festival post.  I guess it can now be considered my "2014 Newport Folk Festival Series."

Part 1(Navigating the Newport Folk Festival)
Part 2(10 Songs I Hope To Hear at NFF)

For me, the Newport Folk Festival is not just a three day weekend at the end of July.  These three days are just the culmination of an almost six month journey of music discovery.  This will only be my 5th time since 2008 but this festival has earned my trust and has become my main source of new(to me) music.  I may have come across them on my own one day but I can say that bands like Apache Relay, First Aid Kit, Kingsley Flood, The Last Bison, Hurray For The Riff Riff, Houndmouth, PHOX, The Oh Hello's, J. Roddy Walston & The Business, Lucius and Ages and Ages (to name a few) are now go-to albums for me and will be long after I see them at the Fort.  I give most, if not all the credit, to the Newport Folk Festival for that.

The first time I went to the NFF, I went with my future wife and some friends(the co-author of Exploding Slacks).  I now have a 4 year old and a 2 year old who have been to the festival three and two times respectively.  I love the idea of raising "festival kids."  My parents started going a few years ago too.  I'd be chasing my kids around while my parents hopped from stage to stage.  I'd get a text from them with a picture of them with Apache Relay or a picture of my dad and Jim James.  The NFF has gone beyond creating just musical memories, it's created family memories as well.