Michael Dickson

My favorite thing about concerts in small venues (and simultaneously my least favorite thing) is that awkward semi-circle of vacant space that sometimes materializes in front of the stage. It’s like a bubble of audience hesitation, a buffer that persists until the opening band is finished wooing—although sometimes it isn’t until the next band comes on that people have started to get over themselves. It’s up to the band—the dominant actor in this particular culturally-structured relationship—to make the audience at ease, smile, demonstrate an interest in how the audience is feeling, and maybe pick up the bill for dinner....

How on earth are you supposed to communicate an experience with writing anyway? In a neat list of events, chronologically ordered? In one-word sentences and eclectic artsy sentence fragments? In a rapid series of photo captions and hash tags? Personally, I prefer the anecdote. We were looking for a fire to warm ourselves on Friday, the first night I spent at Shakori, when we stumbled upon what we thought must have been the community fire pit we’d heard so much about — I’ve never been good at reading maps. We lay down our blanket and settled in, immediately welcomed...

They have the harmonic and rhythmic precision of Mumford & Sons and a lyrical complexity approaching that of the Decemberists or Sufjan Stevens.

Josh Ritter is constantly in awe. His face lights up with joy and surprise every time he can tell the audience knows his lyrics.