BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Seas of eyeballs looked back at the Avett Brothers last month at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn. More than 70,000 folks attended.
“Excellent,” said Bob Crawford, a bassist in the Avett Brothers. “The time of our lives.”
The Concord, N.C.-based acoustic music trio shared the hugely popular festival with rock superstars Pearl Jam and Metallica, along with bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley. Anything goes at Bonnaroo, but relatively few bands are invited to play.
Oh yes, the Avett Brothers have arrived.
And they will appear on July 12 at the Paramount Center for the Arts in Bristol, Tenn.
“Bonnaroo was one of the largest festivals in the country,” Crawford said last week by phone from Troy, N.Y. while “staring at a cold burrito.”
For a superstar act like Metallica, playing to a crowd as large as that which attended Bonnaroo is not out of the ordinary. For an act on the scale of the Avett Brothers, opportunity for growth explodes.
“We’ve found out from festivals that you are given an ability to multiply your fan base,” Crawford said. “You’re reaching a lot of people from a lot of different states.”
Since forming nearly 10 years ago, the Avett Brothers’ following has swelled gradually. They went from playing for a few dozen people to 100 to several hundred and now often into the thousands each night.
Do not listen for the Avett Brothers on the radio. Chances are you will not hear them there. However, cup an ear to the growing hubbub among their avid fans for mighty strong word of mouth.
“That’s how it happened, one person at a time,” Crawford said. “Like the first time we played out west, we played in Colorado for about 30 people. They were there because our family members called each of them and said they had to be there. At some point, it grows exponentially – trickle, trickle, trickle. It grew out of North Carolina one person at a time.”
OK, but what the heck is “it?”
The Avett Brothers play acoustic music. Basic stuff, really – guitar, bass, drums – sometimes banjo and mandolin. They are neither bluegrass nor country. Descriptions applied include punk bluegrass to hippie grass to pretty much whatever you can imagine.
“I say it’s rock and roll,” Crawford said. “It’s just rock and roll.”
Expect more rock and roll from the Avett Brothers early next year. The Ramseur Records band entered a recording studio last week to record their follow-up to last year’s “Emotionalism.”
“We love it. We love the songs,” Crawford said. “These songs are crafted slowly. We’ll play some for months and play them live, and we’re sure it will be on the record, but then something else leapfrogs over it. It never stops.”
Just like the Avett Brothers’ touring schedule, more than 200 shows per year. Venues include nightclubs to theaters to colleges to amphitheaters to gigantic festivals.
A years-ago cigarette advertisement proclaimed “You’ve come a long way, baby!” That applies to the Avett Brothers.
“It feels like the floodgates have been released,” Crawford said. “We’re thankful. We’re clicking.”
IF YOU GO
Who: The Avett Brothers
When: July 12, 8 p.m.
Where: Paramount Center for the Arts, 518 State St., Bristol, Tenn.
Tickets: $25
Info: (423) 274-8920
Web: www.theavettbrothers.com
TOM NETHERLAND is a freelance writer. He can be reached at features@bristolnews.com.
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