Field Report of the Sawdust Festival, July 28, 2001
By Heidi Rojo
We got to the Sawdust Festival on Saturday by 10:00, since
we heard that parking can be a real experience. Laguna Beach is a beautiful
artsy town on the Pacific Ocean with lots of shops, art galleries and wonderful
aromas drifting by as you walk. The Sawdust Festival is a couple miles
away from the ocean on Canyon Road. It seems to be in the
middle of nowhere – "oh, that must be it!"
We parked and walked to the entrance.
It's a beautiful sight to see; every year these artists
start from scratch and build their little shanties, plain or fancy, from the
ground up. So each booth is different from the others. Some are built around
trees, some are on the slope of a hill.
In the middle of all this is a building for the glass blowers to do
their stuff - it's amazing to watch - they create a vase or tall beer
glass...right before your eyes.
Covering the ground is sawdust to keep the dust from filling
the air. As we walked through the small crowd from booth to booth, I started to
panic. Almost every vendor was talking about "the Elvises." "Just so you know, the Elvises are
coming today!" was passed down the line. What
does this mean? Does
everyone go to see them and then there are no shoppers? Soon, I noticed people wearing RED shirts.
Oh no, we’d better get to the wooden deck where "the Elvises" were to
perform, quick.
No one was on the wooden deck and it was nearing 12:00, show
time. Were we in the right place? We had to be. We sat down on a bench in
front of a beautiful waterfall, amongst colorful California flowers - what a
setting!
Soon, we saw Oleg’s orangy~red hair as he walked through the
crowd below carrying a large heavy bag. He unloaded and went back down to the
entrance for moreNext came Zhenya, then Igor, back and forth. When they had it
all up on the deck, they came over and said hello and
exchanged hugs with the three of us. We had a very nice
surprise after that - Vladimir G was there also! If you think the other guys
are nice, you have to meet Vladimir!
They don't come any nicer.
The guys played on and off from about 12:30 to 4:00. It
seemed they decided what to play as they went along. One would suggest a song
and sometimes they went with it; at other times, Igor made a face and said, no
or nyet. The crowd came and went and to everyone’s astonishment, no one belly
danced! I would have loved to support the guys in this way, but I recently
found out, during a mambo lesson, that I truly can't dance! The songs were
great, the RE Classics - Sad Cowboy Song, Harriet....plus 2-3 new ones since we
had the privilege of seeing them in April.
How do they come up with all these new songs?! They traded instruments
with ease. Oleg seems to like playing the drums very much. The backdrop was
pretty awesome - palm trees and hills and a gorgeous blue sky with white clouds
floating by – and Red Elvis music filling the air. What a wonderful day!
Oh, the reason why the artists were passing the word about
the Red Elvises being there was that they like them and were excited that they
were there. One blond painter in a pink sundress came skipping across the stage
on her way back from the bathroom. There was a balloon girl who was making red
and gold balloon bracelets for the girls or fanciful goofy hats for the boys.
The deck was conveniently situated between the bathroom on one side and the
beer vendor on the other. Down below
was the popcorn, soda, ice cream lady and high on the hill on a bluff
overlooking the Sawdust Festival was a cranky old lady that called the Festival
and complained that the music was too loud. Zhenya turned it down for one song,
then, looking towards the hill for a brief
moment, he cranked it up again.
We also went to the Sawdust Festival on Sunday. There was a
bigger crowd and some pretty fancy dancing going on - one dancer required an
ice pack. It was another wonderful sunny California day listening to the Red
Elvises perform only the way they can.
Kayt was there also, so I'll leave the rest up to her.
Thanks for a wonderful time!
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