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A reconstituted Blueground Undergrass took the Hill Holler stage late Saturday afternoon. The Rev. Jeff Mosier, his brother, Johnny, and pedal steel player Mark Van Allen are the core. New fiddle player Owen Saunders and a solid and jazz/funky new rhythm section joined them.

I had never heard BGUG before it played Roanoke last year. The version that played back then was good, but this lineup would bring the band's real vibe, Jeff Mosier had said. He was right.

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Some fog hanging around the hills, not so low as to obstruct your view. Torches light the way down the long hill.

People place big logs in the campfire, sending sparks up into the breeze that stays steady all morning. Twisting spotlights from the stage flash into the cloud of smoke and sparks as it twirls up and out.

Giant Panda Guerilla Dub has it locked in like superglue. Really good singer. Two large video screens play snippets of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "A Scanner Darkly," "Napoleon Dynamite" and more while Giant Panda grooves, very clean, neo-traditional reggae.

The keyboard player plays a melodica. It's a good sound for this music.

Lots of people up front, bouncing and dancing. A drummer back behind the big campfire is playing along, boiling up some 16th note patterns.

No watch onhand, no desire to ask what time it is. It is late, but it is early.

It is 1:44 a.m. Some party folk just set off some big fireworks. I have no wireless access at the “24/7” Internet kiosk. Dumpstaphunk was too much.

It is 1:55 a.m. I'm with my revived laptop at the FloydFest site ops trailer.

I wrote some stupid, overly exuberant mess a few hours back about how no other band could beat a good African band. I remember writing, "prove me wrong." I'm glad no one posted anything yet arguing with me. I had forgotten about New Orleans bands.

I just heard Dumpstaphunk, and my attitude is properly adjusted. It's not about who can kick whose behind. It's just turning on a crowd -- any crowd, any music.

In this case, it was about Big Easy royalty, Ivan Neville, and some of the nastiest live playing I've ever heard.

It was about "Livin' in a World Gone Mad," where you take a problem and "Put It in the Dumpsta." It was about the wherewithal to "Shake It Off." If Neville and his band have a thesis, it's this: Life sucks; have a good time.

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First, a little thought about African bands. Just about any African band can kick the rump of any other band. Prove me wrong.

It's no different with Oliver "Tuku" Mtukudzi's and Black Spirits. It's not about chops, though everyone in the band, including Mtukudzi, has plenty. But it's the way they play together to service the groove. Seamless. Timeless.

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So, my laptop's battery tanked, and I had the devil kicking it back into gear. I went to the Internet kiosk to post the last item, and who was waiting for me but Stephanie Rooker.

Rooker, originally from Radford, is now in New York City, working to make her music career happen, and she's on the FloydFest bill as part of the Emerging Artist Series. Rooker has a really nice record, "Tellin You Right Now," which you should hear.

She played at 202 Market last night, a show she said went really well. Previous days this week, she and her band had played the Iota Club and Cafe, in Arlington; Ashland Coffee and Tea, near Richmond; and Gravity Lounge, in Charlottesville, before hitting FloydFest.

"We had such a good run of shows," she said, calling her audience at Ashland "wonderful."

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In the past year, Gary Jackson at 202 Market booked a couple of bands that he was really high on -- Bombadil and Paleface. Recently, he booked onetime Radford resident Stephanie Rooker. All three are performing at the fest today. If you've missed them in Roanoke and aren't here today, make sure to catch them when you see them listed.

Bombadil followed Paleface this afternoon at the dance tent, to a crowd that grew and grew as Paleface's set went on. Both acts were really fun and good.

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Photo courtesy Ty Brady

The Superpowers, with drummer and Glenvar High grad Adam Clark laying down an insistent groove.

I've written a good deal in the past about ex-Roanoker Adam Clark and his Boston and New York-based act, the Superpowers.

Once, I wrote that they were Afrobeat freaks. Of course, I meant it in the best possible sense, as in "freaks of nature," because their playing is so dead-on. But I'm afraid I offended Clark's mom, Shelley, who wrote me to let me know that her son and his fellow musicians were not freaks. Sorry, Shelley. Anyway, I guess the word "freaks" is a little hackneyed.

Let's move on to the band's show on the main stage about noon on Saturday: Tight and loose at the same time, as usual.

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Say you're like me -- not an outdoorsperson, always with camping gear ready -- but you don't mind the great outdoors, and there is a multi-day music festival that you want to see. Dancin' Dave is your man. As newgrass pioneer Sam Bush has said, Dave gives good tent.

He also likes music, hence his many travels to festivals all over the place, setting up campsites for likeminded folk. I asked him this morning which shows he liked yesterday. He said Oneside, Junior League, Railroad Earth, and the Farewell Drifters. I only caught one of those shows and wound up feeling that I'd missed out, so I asked him for a suggestion of two from today's lineup.

"Crooked Still," he said. "I can't recommend them highly enough."

As for yesterday's acts, he said he was not familiar with them until this fest. It's good to know there are new musical adventures for a well-traveled guy like Dancin' Dave.

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It is a gorgeous late Friday night up here. A little chilly, maybe in the high 50s, and a breeze, but nothing resembling polar.

Railroad Earth is on the main stage right now, doing a very mellow set of melodic, Appalachian roots music, and reminding me a lot of the Band, at least in spirit. You hear reels, jigs, even a nice, old-school marching beat at the band evokes Civil War imagery, singing: "A boy in the South in the pouring rain. We're all going down to Dixie."

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Katie Pearlman, sticking it and singing it on Friday afternoon

As I ended some photo editing and started this entry, Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band was just wrapping up within earshot from the dance tent. That is a fine damn band.

But I didn't get to see them, because I've got to write sometime. So here we go ... and it's a good'un.

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