BRISTOL – Regardless of where you were from —— Tri-Cities, in-state, out-of-state, out of the country – everyone in downtown Bristol Saturday night merged as one family.
State Street was lively as vendors and merchants opened their doors to the crowds, but inside the ticket-only gates, people swayed to the music while walking to either of the two stages.
Lines for drinks and merchandise were backed up longer than the lines to get in, but people were all smiles, though, because unlike those just meandering through State Street, they were about to see the English rock band Mumford & Sons during the Bristol stopover of the group’s Gentlemen of the Road Tour.
Chasity Raif, of Sanford, N.C., said she and her friends made the five-hour trek to the Tri-Cities because for her, seeing Mumford was a necessity.
Plotting out a strategy on how they would be able to get as close to the band as possible, Raif and her friends took shifts from their location at the front of the stage whenever one of them needed to go to the bathroom or rehydrate.
“We got here about 10:30 or 11 a.m. and scoped out the town,” she said while waiting for the 8:50 p.m. appearance of the group. “We’ve been stalking Mumford & Sons, looking for them like everywhere we go. We want to stand as close to the stage as possible.”
Raif said the last few years of her life have been a struggle, as she battled depression. Citing Mumford & Sons’ music to be part of her cure, she said she really can’t wait to see the band perform.
“With Mumford & Sons, almost every single song relates to me. Every song has gotten me through at least some point,” Raif said. “I can’t tell you how many times they have saved my life. I would just turn on my Mumford & Sons playlist and then just chill out.”
From the time she was waiting on the Internet to push the “buy” button on her computer for tickets up until Saturday night, has been somewhat of a countdown for Raif. She said she’s loved every minute of her time in Bristol, and has thoroughly enjoyed the bands performing before Mumford.
“All of the bands are great. That’s the first time I’ve heard Apache Relay and my friends and I looked at each other and we all like instantly fell in love,” she said.
Other bands that performed Saturday night were Simon Felice, Haim, JEFF and the Brotherhood, Justin Townes Earle, Dawes and The Very Best.
“Everywhere I’ve gone people are making friends with each other. If someone’s standing next to them in line, you know, they’ve never met them before, but they will have this intimate conversation and … become like the best of friends in the long lines for the T-shirt or … for the water,” she said. “It’s just so nice to see like so many … genuinely nice people just come together and get along in a place like this. Best day of my life."
Matt Lavinder, a Bristol native, said that given the crowd size the concert area was easy to navigate and that he was excited that Mumford came to his hometown.
“To get them to come here was fantastic,” he said. “It’s really cool and they put it together pretty quickly. It seems like everybody’s really enjoying themselves and really laid-back atmosphere.”
Laura Rotella, along with Lygie Hinkle and Collette Julian, all from northern Virginia, were hanging out in a shaded area inside the gates, resting up for the Mumford show, while also enjoying the other bands on-stage.
"I saw Mumford and Sons last summer. It was a great concert,” Hinkle said. “Here, this is like a much more rich experience because you get to experience this smaller, kind of quaint town, that has some very distinctive local flavor. There’s all these little quaint little streets with shops and the people have all been very friendly. It’s just a really cool, total experience.”
Rotella said she felt the show was unique because it was very limited with who would be able to see the English rock stars, and felt that Bristol has really provided a neat experience for out-of-towners.
“They (Mumford) really put a lot of emphasis into where they were picking the … cities to play,” she said. “There’s a lot more than what I was expecting. I kind of thought we were going to be in a place where it was going to be the concert and that’s it. It was nice to see the town out, all the vendors.”