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My Newport miracle
When I describe the allure of the Newport Folk Festival to friends, my eyes take on the sheen of a lovesick teenager. “People are just so nice,” I say.
The three-day music festival sells out almost immediately each year, before a single performer is announced. There are plenty of reasons why: the history, the legendary collaborations and surprise performances, the panoramic views of Newport harbor and Narragansett Bay, the ready supply of Del’s frozen lemonade. But there’s also the possibility of a “Newport miracle.”
This was my fourth summer as a Newport devotee, and the pairing I was most looking forward to was Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman. But the moments that stuck with me were ones I didn’t see coming. Watching Tommy Prine, son of the late, great John Prine, join Jesse Welles for “Angel from Montgomery.” Listening from the beer pier as Margo Price, Jesse Welles and John C. Reilly (yes, the actor, also a folk fan) took turns singing “Maggie’s Farm,” 60 years after Dylan went electric. Walking right by Flava Flav on my way to get a Caesar wrap. (The rumors are true: he’s so nice!)
Last year, I’d lost my dad just two months before the festival weekend, and when a singer-songwriter from rural Tennessee named Josiah & the Bonnevilles launched into a stripped down acoustic version of Justin Bieber’s “Ghost” — let’s just say I wasn’t the only one wiping my eyes.
All of this is part of Newport’s magic. It’s one of those places where, so often, you find what you didn't quite know you needed. But I can’t say I’d experienced my own “Newport miracle” until this year.
I have this “Cape Cod bracelet,” a silver loop secured with a gold ball. It was a gift from my parents many years ago, one of the only pieces of jewelry I’m sentimental about. It notoriously sets off metal detectors, so on Friday I removed the bracelet to pass through security. Hours later, as the sun set on the harbor and Jack Antonoff and Bleachers welcomed an impressive array of friends, I dug in my bag and realized, with a terrible sinking feeling, that the bracelet just wasn’t there. Somehow, somewhere, in all of Fort Adams State Park, I’d lost it.
My husband and I scoured the grass. I thought, if there’s anyplace where someone would find and turn something in, it’s here. But we’d been all over that day: three stage areas, food trucks and a beer garden. I was afraid to hope. We passed the lost and found tent just before the festival exit, so I described the bracelet to the three volunteers. When one of them asked me what color the ball in the center was, my mind went blank, and my husband yelled “GOLD!” like he was on final Jeopardy. He’d seen one of the girls smile. Then she handed me the bracelet.
Reader, I sobbed. I was now two-for-two for crying at a folk festival. I told the girls at the tent: “It’s a Newport miracle.”
On Sunday evening, exhausted, elated, covered in three day’s worth of sunscreen and running on BBQ and Ben & Jerry’s, I joined my friends for the closing set, listed simply as “Songs for the People.” Pete Seeger, one of the founders of the festival, is known for saying, “Get people to sing together, and they’ll act together too.” So as John C. Reilly stepped on stage as emcee, he explained that this would be a set of songs we knew, performed by musicians from throughout the weekend, and we should sing along. This one was for all of us.
I thought about what I went into the weekend hoping to find, as we sang along to Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic,” Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” and “God Only Knows,” by the Beach Boys. Mavis Staples sang her father’s song, “Friendship,” with Jeff Tweedy (to my delight, she calls him Tweedy.) Near the end, Lukas Nelson, Willie’s son, rang out Neil Young’s “Keep on Rocking in the Free World.” Talk about electric.
For the final song, everyone who performed came back on stage, like at the end of a “Saturday Night Live” taping, to sing “Goodnight Irene.” It’s a tradition from years past, though new to me. I knew “Goodnight Irene” as one of my dad’s favorite songs. I put my hand around my bracelet as we sang — everyone on stage, everyone around me, everyone at the fort.
If that wasn’t another Newport miracle, well, it still felt like magic. I know it felt like hope.
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