It is the day before Gasparilla Music Festival (GMF) 2022 and I am stoked for the weekend. This year will be the eleventh iteration of a scrappy upstart turned destination. I was not there for the first year, but have missed only one since.
Getting ready for covering a festival is a bit of work. As an almost entirely DIY podcast, and not a traditional media outlet, we have to be a speedboat instead of an ocean liner. The day before a festival may reveal an artist can or cannot sit down for an interview. Hours of notes might get thrown out, or hours may need to be put in that were not.
There is a bit of a thrill to the uncertainty. We go into the weekend with a plan. If I am lucky enough to have a collaborator like Jenn Ross with me - as I do on this trip - I also have the responsibility to make sure their work is properly represented. Jenn is going to knock it out of the park with her photos and I need to make sure whatever I create is up to that standard.
After several years of doing this work, the constant the night before is that I am grateful for the opportunity. I might sit down with some heroes this weekend. I might get to take some amazing photos of said heroes. Or, I might just have a great time and spill some words on the page.
As we head to Tampa, we have a couple of soft maybes in our pocket. It seems like folks are less willing to commit to an on-site interview and I don’t blame them. Zoom makes it easy to connect at a time when the artist is not quite as busy and folks are still uncomfortable about COVID.
Whether we sit down with some guests this weekend or not, it’s going to be fun. For me, the foremost draw of GMF is the homecoming. Gasparilla Music Festival has been around for a quarter of my life. Its lineups are diverse and balanced. The setting is damn near unrivaled. But, the people - friends old and new - bring me back each year.