Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
MEMBERS OF The Last Revel Ryan Acker, left, Rachel Hanson and Vincenzio Donatelle play to a packed audience Saturday night during Mountain Top Music Festival at Indianhead Mountain Big Snow Resort in Wakefield.
By BRYAN HELLIOS
Wakefield - Music lovers from the Midwest flocked for the annual Mountain Top Music Festival held at Indianhead and Blackjack Mountain Big Snow Resorts over the weekend.
Festival coordinator Bob Weigandt said he hasn't checked the numbers yet, but believes about 400 people showed up.
"When the roof starts vibrating a little bit, that's what I look for," he said as he looked up and watched the ceiling bounce to the beat.
Starting as a small festival in 2011 called Powwow in the Pines, he said, they re-branded the event in 2013 and changed its name to Mountain Top.
After restructuring the festival it became more narrowly focused to the "roots type of music," he said.
Roots music can include bluegrass, county, folk or anything under that Americana umbrella, he added.
"At that point I feel we started to define our niche a little bit more and we have been working off of that," he said.
Weigandt said he plays mandolin and works as a full time musician with a band called Dig Deep, which is a four-piece string band from Stevens Point, Wis. Although he does not consider himself an "event organizer," he does schedule smaller gigs for his band and said he volunteers "throwing little shows" for his hometown art center.
Besides a few people who work at the ski hill, and some of their friends, he said the Mountain Top Festival has not reached the local audience.
Weigandt said the event draws in people of all ages who want to listen to a "good mix" of drums, electric guitars, banjos, upright basses, fiddles and saxophones.
"I would love love love to see more local folks checking us out," he said.
Singer and guitar player Rachel Hanson said she has been performing at the festival for about six years. Having just recently joined with The Last Revel, she said the friendships she has made at the event have helped her musical career.
She credits Weigandt for bringing people together from all over to take part in the festival and making it unique.
"The community here is insane. ... We're so far north and we're way up here but it feels like it's everybody's home spot, it's pretty amazing," she said. "Long live Mountain Top."
