The tale of Hot August 2024 is one of how patience, perseverance, and perhaps a little bit of luck allow for triumph and joy to ring out. Hot August 2024 may go down as one where a predicted Hurricane and the last-minute withdrawal of a co-headlining act tested the region's nerves, yet the magic of a music festival prevailed.

Only days before August 10th, the festival faced some serious obstacles. Last week, production staff anxiously looked at Hurricane Debby's storm path with a bullseye pointed directly toward Cockeysville, Maryland. Then Snarky Puppy had to postpone all remaining shows due to the sudden loss of their longtime keyboardist, Shaun Martin. As time would prove, Hurricane Debby was not the "Debby Downer" that fans feared, and the festival decided to expand the performance times of the remaining acts to account for the tragic loss of Snarky Puppy.

Despite the pre-festival adversity, Hot August 2024 will be remembered as one of the best editions in recent memory. In 2021, blues prodigy Christone "Kingfish" Ingram would remark about how brutal the weather was at Hot August and how he could have stayed in Mississippi if he wanted to experience our summer weather. This Hot August was indeed extraordinary - cool temperatures, low humidity, dry festival grounds, and smiles all around. There is nothing quite like Hot August on our local festival calendar - a hometown feel, the recollection of all the previous editions, and the thousands of fans who greet each other with smiles and hugs and provide many mid-summer checkpoints and catchups.

The day would begin with an explosive full-throttle set by The Hot August Collective, which included local music icons Jonathan Sloane on guitar and Ron Holloway on saxophone. Their performance would start with a scintillating "Cissy Strut" and then segway through scorching renditions of "Motherless Children," "Loving Cup," and "Got To Get Better In A Little While," finishing with a resounding "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed." The Hot August Collective roared across the expanse of Oregon Ridge Park's parking lot, beckoning fans near and far to step through the front gates of the festival.

One of the many joys of the Hot August festival is watching the crowd's circadian rhythm undulate from one stage to another throughout the day as fans peruse the craft and food vendor area between the two stages. Throughout the day, the Hot August pendulum swayed the audience from The Meadow Stage to The Hillside Stage and back again.

The crowd would gather for the first Hillside Stage act of the day - PRS Eightlock. This band is led by the legendary guitar manufacturer Paul Reed Smith. Comprised of highly respected and world-renowned musicians, they released their debut album last year. The band performed for an hour, showcasing not only excellent musicianship but also featured some of the most revered and beloved instruments in the world. The band would remark on how they are receiving a lot of airplay and attention in Europe right now. It fills us with tremendous DMV pride to know that Paul Reed Smith is exporting two exceptional brands of music around the world.

With the Hot August festival in full swing, fans walked to the Meadow Stage to see Pressing Strings perform. With the summer sun at its peak, fans found delightful refuge beneath the canopy of trees to the left of the stage to take in this beautiful performance. Pressing Strings, a local and cherished band from Annapolis, Maryland, captivated the crowd with their tranquil and energetic music, ending their performance with their uplifting song "It's Better Now." As their anthemic song wafted into the air, it was easy to connect with Pressing String's beautiful music - the day was better than we could have expected one week.

Next, the beaming pride of Baltimore, Maryland, Cris Jacobs, took to the Hillside Stage. Jacobs filled the stage from end to end with his friends and fellow Baltimore musicians, including Todd Herrington (bass), Dusty Ray Simmons (drums), Patrick McAvinue ( fiddle), Alex Berman (banjo), and, of course, the everpresent Jody Mosser (dobro) from Frostburg, Maryland. Jacobs would start his hip-shaking dance party with "Work Song (I Can Still Sing)" before launching into "Jack The Whistle And The Hammer" and ramping up the energy with "Poor Davey." Then, in an unplanned moment, announcers would briefly interrupt the set to ask fans to be on the lookout for two missing girls and help them reconnect with their parents. Jacobs would add, "Look out for those little precious girls, please." After playing the title track from his latest album, "One Of These Days," Jacobs mentioned that Alex Bermans beautiful three-week-old daughter was in the audience today. Hot August is not just about the music but also about our dear Baltimore / DC music community and all that occupies it as we celebrate and cherish one another both on the lawns and on the stages. As Jacobs sang "Life Time To Go," we looked inward and recognized that we were lucky enough to stand atop the gentle green slopes of Oregon Ridge Park on a sunny blue day and enjoy a lifetime of cherished moments like this one.

A testament to a music festival - no matter how big or small - are the choices one must make between performances. One has to decide if they will stay for an entire set before making their way to another stage. If these are the worst problems one faces at a music festival, then that is a cherished problem. With overlapping performances, Hot August fans experienced these delightfully heartwrenching decisions.

In what might be remembered as the most collaborative performance of the day was the Sam Grisman Project. Sam Grisman and his bandmates are enjoying an explosive summer of music, lighting up festival stages from coast to coast. Grisman is the son of mandolin legend David "Dawg" Grisman. While Grisman and his project passionately perform songs paying homage to Jerry Garcia and Dawg's legacy, they have an exceptional catalog of original music. Midway through their performance, Grisman would take a moment to introduce "The great Cris Jacobs" along with Patrick McAvinue to the stage. The stage, now beaming with musicians, provided the perfect backdrop for Jacobs and Grisman to perform "They Loved Each Other."

A short time later, Grisman invited Jake Brownstein and Alex Bailey of Eggy onstage to perform "Mission In The Rain." With the audience reduced to revered silence in appreciation of Mission, one could hear the rhythm of a child playfully tugging on his mother's metallic bead-lined skirt. Grisman would end the set with "I'll Go Crazy," to which we can only respond, "Cause we love you, we love you. Oh, we love you too much". Be sure to see the Sam Grisman Project when they return to DC and Baltimore in mid-October this year.

As the festival's attention shifted back to the Hillside Stage, fans stopped to peruse the vendor booths, purchasing some food and beverages while taking in a late afternoon shop before settling in for a firestorm of energy by Neal Francis. With some enviable hair, Neal Francis sat behind his signature keyboards and set Hot August ablaze. Francis emanated vintage vibes with modern energy as his performance was a masterclass in funk, groove, and showmanship that combined soulful elements of classic rock, rhythm, and blues and harkened us all back to the vibes of the 1970s. During the performance, a member of the audience asked Neal how he was doing, and he said, "Full of crabcake," paying homage to what Baltimore is so famous for worldwide. To gently borrow a phrase describing Page McConnell of Phish: "When Neal Francis gets up, the fans get down!" When Francis stood up to play the keys, the funk and dance party would ensue. Because of the adjustment time schedule, at 6:30 PM, Francis thanked the crowd and prepared to leave the stage only to be told by the crowd and stage staff that their performance was extended to 7 PM. With a grin and peering out from behind his glasses, Francis said, "Looks like we got 30 more minutes of music for you. That was part of the show." With a quick smirk, Francis and his powerhouse group would embark on thirty more minutes of energetic and funktastic music.

Closing out the Meadow Stage was a jamtastic performance by Eggy. Eggy has been steadily on the rise in the jam band scene for years as they continue to carve out their rightful place and win over fans with every performance. Their performance at Hot August was no different as they entranced existing fans and gained a loyal following of new fans with their vibrant and exploratory set. As the heat from the sun fell over the hillside, Eggy brought the heat back with new levels of frenetic peaks and jams. Eggy performed for an hour and a half, and based on the crowd's enthusiastic dancing, they could have gone on well into the night. Eggy's performance was so captivating that fans looked visibly torn as they glanced down at their watch - "Do we head over to Grace Potters's upcoming set or dance the rest of this performance out?" The wonderful dilemmas one faces at Hot August year after year!

 Before the evening's final performance, Robbie Cooper and Ryan Glaeser walked on stage to thank the crowd for coming to this year's edition. They also paid tribute to several members of the community who passed this year and, most of all, to Snarky Puppy, who had to cancel their performance.

 For the final performance of the evening, the one and only wild child of rock-and-roll and lady vagabond, Grace Potter, burst on stage! Potter would start her performance with the song that may best describe her - "Lady Vagabond," and quickly bumbled into "Medicine," which most certainly gave the audience the medicine everybody wants. Potter remains unabashedly herself, wearing her heart on her sleeve, and spends each performance talking to the audience. Hot August might be the most memorable and personal one to date. Potter remains the most authentic and charismatic entertainer of her generation. Soon after the performance started, she had the audience turn around to witness the Cheshire Moon rising behind the Hillside Stage.

She commented that she had always wanted to perform at Hot August again since performing in 2013, adding that she has difficulty packing for Maryland because the weather was too unpredictable. "I could not say no. I looked at my summer schedule, and I was like, yes, and then my cousin was like, 'But we're getting married that day at your farm.' So I've got my whole family at the farm celebrating, and instead of being there, I'm here, and here's the big I wanna join together and celebrate that with a little love song from me to all of you, which will be transferred by radio signal somehow miraculously." However, the running theme of tonight's performance was Grace walking on stage, already having to pee but deciding to take the stage anyhow. Song by song, she would indicate how much she had to pee and how she was having a "Lenny Kravitz moment" but really did not want to leave the stage. With a light show on full display, Potter and her band would appear as beautiful silhouettes dancing against the multi-colored backdrop. Potter, wanting to be closer to the fans, would walk barefoot off stage, sit on the grass slope, and then dance along the rails within feet of enthralled fans before disappearing off stage. With her band holding down the stage, Potter excused herself for a bathroom break before returning to the lawn to dance along the barricades. With renewed vigor and energy, Potter dialed up the energy for the rest of the performance and took out her legendary Flying-V guitar. Of course, always being a stream-of-conscious entertainer, she said she will never ever go on stage again having to pee. Potter would end her performance with a poignant and heartfelt "Stars," as she encouraged the audience to think about their loved ones, living or dead, who they wish they could spend this evening with.

Like so many other editions, this year's Hot August was filled with heartfelt love and community and perfect in many ways. Sometimes, instead of waiting for the storm to pass, you embrace dancing in the rain. This year, we were grateful that the storm, if not the hurricane, passed, and we could embrace the joy of Hot August with that much more vigor.
With thirty-one editions, this festival remains a mainstay in the region's summer music calendar, and we look forward to many more editions to come.