Our series of DelFest Sessions continues with our third installment, featuring Colorado-based bluegrassy string band, Wood Belly. BGS contributors and videographers I Know We Should were on hand for the Memorial Day Weekend festival earlier this year to capture exclusive live performances from artists and bands on the lineup on the beautiful banks of the Potomac River.
For their first song, Wood Belly perform “Alamosa Rain,” a track from their 2023 album,Β Cicada, that highlights all of the musical and stylistic growth the band has enjoyed since they won the band contest at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2018. This is a group with decidedly bluegrass bones, but with a Telecaster and drum kit in the lineup and a song with plenty of pop sensibilities and a folk-rock pocket, it’s easy to tell how Wood Belly can feel right at home whether among traditional bluegrass acts, jam bands, Americana outfits, or many others.
“Alamosa Rain,” an original co-written by the entire band β including Dylan French, Brennan Mackey, Aaron McCloskey, Chris Weist, and Chris Zink β is clearly grown directly from Wood Belly’s Colorado roots. It’s a perfect song for summer, for a long drive flanked by the Rocky Mountains, for pointing your headlights down the highway toward the next town, the next gig, or the next festival.
But, that’s not all, as McCloskey sets down the Tele to pick up his banjo and Mackey steps up to the mic to sing the band’s second selection, “Cry Cry Cry” β also from Cicada. They stay in the groove, lounging in the pocket while leaning forward with the current, like the DelFest-goers lazily floating by behind them on the river in the summer heat.
In the shady understory on the verdant Allegany County Fairgrounds, Wood Belly sing about better luck, about looking up at the stars through satellites, about love and sadness and the essence of life. All while the small gathering of onlookers surely reflect on their own great luck at getting to witness the behind the scenes magic of capturing our DelFest Sessions.
Stay tuned, as our series continues next week, right here on BGS.
Video Credit: Brad Wagner, I Know We Should
Drone Footage: Christopher Weist
Audio Credit: Juan Soria, I Know We Should
