Laundry Day: This Train is Bound for Glory

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros at the Railroad Revival Tour

So, the other thing that I did with my weekend, and my birthday present to myself, was to go to one of the stops of the Railroad Revival Tour, a cross-country train tour with three of my all-time favorite bands: Old Crow Medicine Show, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Mumford & Sons. I met up with my very best friend (she and her sister have been besties with me and my sister since the day we were each born - they're as much family to me as any blood relative) and we donned our dancing shoes (our dancing-outside-in-the-dirt-for-hours-at-a-time shoes) and spent the evening clapping, whistling, singing, grooving, and smiling. I have literally never been to such a fabulously joy-filled event. It felt like each band was just pulsing with happiness to be there, and the vibe was infectious. I left the show on the most incredible high.

Old Crow Medicine Show with Marcus Mumford singing "Wagon Wheel"

The absolute ridiculousness that is Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. The bottom picture has band members from OCMS and Mumford to help belt out one of the songs.

I think the highlight for me was Edward Sharpe. Alex Ebert is a hell of a frontman, and kept the energy so high throughout the set. He was writhing around, and laughing, and talking to Jade, and just being generally jovial and wonderful. For "Home", they started by whistling the first few lines with the audience; the whole festival was suddenly alive with the vibration of 10,000 people whistling. And for the festival's finale, all three bands came rushing on stage, with dozens more backup musicians, a teenage banjo player with mad skills, and a toddler in Jade's arms, and belted out the most enthusiastic, joy-injected rendition of Woody Guthrie's "This Train is Bound for Glory" that I've ever heard. And then they hopped on their vintage traincars and pulled away. The whole experience was nothing short of magical.

OCMS and Mumford on the main stage

Title song: Old Crow Medicine Show, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and Mumford & Sons, "This Train is Bound for Glory"