Newport Folk 2026

Bill Bartholomew reacts to Newport Folk 2026.

Bartholomewtown was on-the-ground at Newport Folk, covering the performances and people that shape the iconic event.

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Bill Bartholomew 0:00

Midsummer in Southern New England, another Newport folk festival in the books. Bartholomew Town was on the ground. And so many takeaways. I'll get to all of that in just a moment. For a lot of people, of course, the big takeaway, Dave Matthews and the surprise appearance. It was a remarkable moment. And I'll share with you what I saw and really what I felt in that moment and give you everything I can to translate as well as I can uh some of what I what I observed and essentially am reporting on here in this podcast. So welcome in. But this this is, I don't I was trying to keep track. I guess this is probably the sixth time that Bartholomew Town has been a credentialed media outlet for the Newport Festivals. This is such a special part of Rhode Island. So all of that in just a second. I want to get to some pretty important news here that uh I we haven't been on with a new episode since last week. And this is finally absolutely confirmed. So I want to make some major announcements here. Coming up next week, August 3rd, Monday, August 3rd, I will be moderating a debate between Governor Dan McKee and Helena Bonano folks, the two candidates in the Democratic primary for governor. And this will be the first time the two are debating. Understand that there are three debates scheduled. This will be the first of three, and you're going to be able to hear that on WPRO on the radio at noon on Monday, August 3rd. And then as soon as it goes live on the radio, I'll post it here on the podcast. Okay, so the first of three gubernatorial debates right here on Bartholomew Town, I'll be moderating that. Okay, the next day, Tuesday, August 4th, I'll be moderating a debate, mayor of Providence. Brett Smiley, mayor of Providence, and David Morales, the state representative who is mounting a pretty significant uh campaign in his challenge in that Democrat primary, ostensibly the mayor's race will be decided there. That'll be, again, on Tuesday, August 4th, uh, with a noontime broadcast on WPRO, 997 FM AM630, 997 WPRO.com. Okay. As soon as it goes up, boom, or I'm sorry, as soon as it goes live over the air, I'll post on the podcast as well. So you get next week governor and mayor debates, beat town special, coming up. And these are these are going to be in the case of the governor, it'll be the first debate. In the case of uh mayor providence, they've already had a couple of debates. So working diligently on that, it took a lot to bring it together. I want to thank all the parties from all the campaigns and from uh cumulus media uh who operate WPRO for the the the project that we've put together here. I'm pleased that we were able to get it across the finish line and bring that to you because you that's what you deserve. Right. In an election season, that's what it really should be about. Ideas and the candidates right there in front of you. So again, that's coming up next week. Had to put it here at the front of this episode, right? So Newport folk is a magical experience from an intangible standpoint. From a practical standpoint, it's a big deal. It's a big deal from the standpoint, obviously, of economics. I haven't seen an impact study in a little bit, but between the two festivals, folk and jazz, you're talking like sixty sixty million dollars, I would guess well north of that in economic activity. And Commerce RI no doubt plays a role in facilitating uh this as a major event and a major impact event, economic driver. Now, what's interesting is there was an article in the Providence Journal today about, you know, sort of this anti-tourism push that's happening in Newport politics. Some of it stems directly from the festivals and the traffic. So it's like, okay, you can't literally have your cake and eat it too here. If you're if you're Newport, you have to kind of decide what you want to be. But honestly, from the standpoint of management, that's the first thing I want to talk about. I mean, a ton of bikes. Kudos to Bike Newport, Barry Freeman, and that organization just did an incredible job of getting people to ride their bikes and to facilitate that. I commend the Newport City Council. Um, had a chance to speak with uh uh Councilor uh Kamzer Vorvong uh on uh Friday night about this and some of the thought that went into planning a new multimodal uh entrance where you got cars in one lane, bikes in another lane made a huge difference. That's the kind of city planning that not only improves an event, but also starts to spark ideas about urban planning in general. And so to see that kind of uh effective operation in tandem with the water taxis, um pedestrians, so on and so forth, it's like a good exercise, right? Because a lot of this stuff ends up in a think tank conversation or a bubble and very hypothetical. So to see it in action, I thought that was a really powerful and important thing for the city of Newport and for the state. Can you shut down, you know, Brenton Road or whatever it is all the time and turn it into half bikes, half uh cars? You couldn't even do it on South Water Street in Providence. You'd never get it across the finish line. It's a non-starter, but can you pop it up in a can we have a flexible transit system? Yes, we are starting to prove that these festivals are a good example of that. So from a practical standpoint, good job. Um, you know, kudos. I know there was some trouble getting out on Friday night, I've heard, but look, they're always moving it around. Uh uh I commend uh it's an island with very few egresses, so to speak. And so I commend them for doing a good job, right? Now, on the festival itself, look, you know, you had a a really steady festival in a lot of ways. And I mean that in the sense that there was a lot of levity to the air, a lot of really good performances, you know, bands like Fruit Bats. Uh, you know, he had a great set, great performance. The crowd was into it. You saw a lot of that energy, and it kind of just stayed there to me as I moved around the fort on the first day and Friday, even on Saturday. People were into it, but it was, it was, it didn't have that big peak and valley moment that the sometimes you see it at a festival in general, right? Where a huge act, a buzzy act comes out, or somebody has a surprise great set. It was very steady, but it was just a nice reminder that the mediums that are represented here, there's a lot of opportunity to explore sonically. There's a lot of opportunity to explore thematically and performance-wise. The songwriter, indie band, etc. model, right? It is definitely fertile ground. And there are a lot of performers that are both coming from more of a traditional standpoint or from a more experimental standpoint and are crossing into new territory. And I saw a lot of that. By Sunday, there's definitely an air. Great Irish artist, C Matt. To me, that was a really powerful moment in the in the entire festival. The energies just start to pick up to another level, ultimately cascading in a series of really great sets. I mean, Tom Morello, the Rage Against the Machine, and uh audio slave guitarist. It was it was at minimum interesting and exciting to observe it. People were really into it. And uh, no doubt, uh Brandon Flowers, the killer's singer. What an unbelievable talent, what an unbelievable, surprising. You know, I just didn't I didn't think of it, you know, that it would be uh what it was, just an incredibly exciting show. Um, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings with their Grateful Dead set, just huge stuff happening, all kind of cascading into as the buzz was going around Sunday morning that Dave Matthews was on site. Hey, Dave Matthews is on stage on the Ford stage. And the air had already kind of had that, you know, it just dipped down temperature-wise. It was a little darker. The the wind was, it was just a just kind of a spooky moment in general in there. You know, it's just, I was laying down in the back. I'd walked around a million, talked to a million people, walked around, saw a million sets. I was just laying down. Kind of wondering at when the Dave Matthews appearance was actually going to happen uh in the night. And and what I think we were feeling, I think what people were feeling in there was just the shared curiosity and a shared excitement, especially generationally. You know, for me, Dave Matthews, I first discovered Dave Matthews as like it was like a WBRU, like 99-7 The Edge was playing Dave Matthews. It was like an alternative rock first type of act. So that's like my initial relationship with this artist, like through the actual radio on like alternative rock, like depending on the station like format-wise, presented in tandem with like Nirvana and you know, Pixies, et cetera. Like that was that was the template that I first discovered Dave Matthews from. And then, of course, like, you know, whatever. Uh it it transformed into a different space than necessarily I was interested in or whatever, but always um had a curiosity at minimum to see the guy perform. I'd never seen Dave Matthews perform. And so as we made our way from the quad area around the there's several different stages and through the four, we made our way around, and I just saw Dave Matthews, I heard Dave Matthews' voice, and I saw Dave Matthews standing on the stage by himself. And my friend Colleen was the only other person on the stage, one of my dearest friends in the world, and she was filming. I was just like, man, what a what a cool moment. What an unbelief what a unique scenario that this could happen. You know, there's there's parameters. I'm not going to get into the business dealings of why you can't announce an artist like Dave Matthews is going to appear and all that. It doesn't matter. The magical element is that it was a great performance. It was a beautiful performance. Shocking. Um akin to the Roger Waters moment at the folk festival several years ago in shock, so to speak, like a woke. Again, a curiosity and an amusement of sorts, right? That ultimately just delivered a great moment of shared energy. Holy smokes. It's so easy to turn this stuff into romanticized, sort of like uh almost cringe worthy kind of conversation, right? So what actually happens. Yes. I feel like this festival this weekend inside of that place, it was all ramping up towards what ultimately was a very unique intimate moment amongst a lot of people. It just felt good. Even if you're an introvert, which I kinda am, it felt like really good to be. It felt good to have a Newport Bridge behind me and Dave Matthews on the stage singing don't drink the water. And be in that moment. It just felt good. You know, I saw some some kind of oh Dave Matthews, you know, I hate Dave Matthews. If someone says something like Dave Matthews sucks, that's what I saw. Some people talking about, yeah, some local musician guys or whatever or something. It's similar to when people say, yeah, Taylor, I hate Taylor Swift or she sucks or whatever. You know, I just I'm not even interested in the conversation because the the it doesn't matter your particular tastes or whatever, you know, to have a to not recognize something special. It's like not worth engaging in. But the again, that's a that's a minority. It was truly a great moment. It was truly a great experience. I wish you all could have been there. I w the intimacy protects the moment, but it also creates a not almost a gatekeeper scenario, because that's it's there's a there's access, it's just very scarce, right? And because that you can't bottle it up and put it out into the community, you know, you can't say, all right, let's do it every every weekend. You know, let's just do it every weekend. It's awesome, right? Of course not. Of course not. The scarcity is what creates the magic. But looking at it through a Rhode Island lens, right, and through which we always come back to here on this show, this is what we do. It's what I do, you know, and I just think it's a beautiful moment. We try to manufacture things far too often around here. This is something we often talk about on the show. I try to highlight things. I don't care what the space is. Hey, here's something that's actually working in housing. Here's something that's actually working in economic development. Here's an educational approach that's seeing results, right? And identifying the things that work and uplifting those things and trying to not emulate them and not replicate them, but to embrace them for their the attributes which make them great historical slash community connection and and and bringing people together around something that they want to be there for. So that's always my takeaway. I'm not saying it's even through music. I mean, look at Newport Film and what they've done. I yeah, we have a relationship around the show. That's a that's a that is in I have been long in a mire of Newport Film's work, and they did it again. I did this, I moderated a panel on uh Thursday night for Newport Film. I couldn't believe there were four more than 4,000 people there gathering around to watch the uh the uh new Jack Johnson film. I moderated a panel with uh Siddha Bruce and a bunch of surfing legends. It was freaking awesome, man. You know, it's like part of the solution to the third spaces challenge, you know, where how do we get people to come back together? That thing is making sure it kicked, the thing that people are doing kicks ass and like actually moves you. And you need talent to do that. You need talented people to bring people together, you need talented people to do the exercise on the stage, the platform, the field court, pitch, whatever, etc. etc. And cultivating that and harnessing that and embracing that and celebrating that to the fullest is something I always think we should be doing more of. And who's we? I don't know. That's the challenge. That's the danger of this medium. Whether it's on the podcast, the radio, whatever. You just say we should be doing this. Okay, well, what what can we do? You know, as a as a community to to rally around things now are there problems with with every large-scale event? There are there are problems uh is there is there another side to it, right? Are there people who have you know the detractors of the Newport festivals or or because the traffic or because they're you know whatever, they have grievance or whatever it may be. Sure. Okay. But as Rhode Island continues to look for its identity, it needs to start looking at its soul and pull it straight out of there. Because it is right there in front of us. Stop trying to manufacture stuff. You've already got it here. It comes out in moments like this. This Newport Folk Festival, that Dave Matthews moment, man. Out on the water. Again, I I don't know. I probably could tell you if I don't I couldn't tell you how many Dave Matthews songs. If he handed me a guitar now, I could play. It's a it's definitely less than five. I'm not like a Dave Matthews guy. I haven't thought of Dave Matthews in a long time. I've been listening since that show. In fact, I did see on like an Instagram video or something. I think it was like the le second to last episode of the Colbert show. Dave Matthews playing a uh Don't Drink the Water, one of the songs he played at the Folk Festival, Solo Acoustic. Dark. Really beautiful, really powerful, man. Just great. Just great stuff, you know. So that's uh that's part of it. Kudos to, again, um the the the auxiliary elements of this as well. Um oh, how about this? Uh, you know, the the the food element is huge to any successful event, right? And that's no different at uh Newport Folk. And and let me tell you, I discovered I'm vegan. A lot of listeners know that. And I haven't been like touting that as much or anything like that in the last couple of years, but it's still sometimes people are like, yo, I'm I I'm also vegan. The broccoli bar out of Burlington, Vermont. I'm like a broccoli head now. I'm I'm gonna like start to start I'm gonna be talking about cooking broccoli pretty soon on like uh an upcoming episode. I'll put it that way. Amazing, amazing food truck, uh broccoli-based, vegan stuff. But look, the the the overall component of it, the vendors, the whole thing. It's look, at the end of the day, we understand it's an event, we understand there's there's it's a it's a business, we get it. All right. But it achieves a higher level of experience, highest level of experience. It's a standard we should strive for more and more and more and more and more places. It's something to observe and say, okay, hell yeah. I'm not talking about somebody who does their own folk festival either. I'm not talking about anything like that. Original ideas done super freaking well. We have a lot of opportunity to tap into in that in that regard. And the culinary space, the vendor space, the multimodal elements uh to get there, the interactivity, the uh you know, environmental, ecological elements of it. It's all right there. What in the world are we doing? Fooling around with 90% of the ideas that come as the direction to take the state from a marketing standpoint or from a uh you know, a broad economic developed swing for some gigantic one in a million shot in the dark type thing while the Superman building is boarded up, right? Downtown Providence, you know, and try to revive something that's almost not revivable from an industrial standpoint without looking and looking at that which is working and thinking more outside the box. That's why I highlighted every year. Happened again this year. Big Matthews. Debates next week. Main event type uh type of week here in terms of the podcast. I'm gonna be getting ready for it. I pre-recorded a couple episodes for the rest of this week. And uh I'll be I'll be under the hood. But I'll be at Jazz Fest. We'll be there as much as we can be as I prepare for next week. Uh, I do I do plan to be there each day. Come and say hi. It's been great to meet a bunch of you guys out there as well. I really do appreciate it. Um, some really great conversations, and uh I look forward to more of those as well.