Who said hippies don’t know how to run a festival? Altamont and latter-day Woodstocks be damned: Far from the mud pits of Bonnaroo, in Masontown, W.Va., canny organizers mounting the 14th iteration of the All Good Music Festival have done the impossible. They’ve structured four days of superjam with (a) benign regulations for managing the fest’s 20,000-plus-strong crowd and (b) no overlapping sets. That means you won’t have to choose between Old Crow Medicine Show (Friday) and D.C.’s Fort Knox Five (Thursday)—or between Dr. Dog (Saturday) and Furthur (Friday), a collaboration that does Bob Weir a favor by reuniting him with larger-souled former bandmate Phil Lesh. Stalwart noodlers like Widespread (as in Panic) and Umphrey’s (as in McGee) will inevitably be present. Less inevitably: Femi Kuti, the Travelin’ McCourys, and Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad. Then there’s Dark Star Orchestra, the beneficiaries of another wise move by festival organizers: The group will appear a day before Weir and Lesh, lest it suffer by comparison.
THE FESTIVAL TAKES PLACE ON MARVIN’S MOUNTAINTOP IN MASONTOWN, W.VA. THURSDAY TO SUNDAY. ADVANCE 3- AND 4-DAY PASSES STILL AVAILABLE. ($159 AND $179, RESPECTIVELY.)