Snapshots: Rooster Walk Music and Arts Festival @ Pop’s Farm (Martinsville, VA)

Live Review

Snapshots: Rooster Walk Music and Arts Festival @ Pop’s Farm (Martinsville, VA) — 5/25-5/28/23

Chester Simpson

June 2, 2023

Snapshots: Rooster Walk Music and Arts Festival @ Pop’s Farm (Martinsville, VA) — 5/25-5/28/23 — Daniel Donato's Cosmic Country performs at Rooster Walk Music and Arts Festival 13 at Pop's Farm. (Photo by Chester Simpson)

Rooster Walk Music and Arts Festival 13 on May 25-28 in Martinsville, Virginia, was a four-day festival celebrating music, art, and the great outdoors at the idyllic Pop’s Farm venue. With roughly 50 bands performing on six different stages, an amazing roster of stellar music steers the Rooster Walk experience.

Chester Simpson was there to photograph the show.

Watch a video of young boys dancing at Rooster Walk 13 on YouTube:

In the Roost Walk program, Johnny Buck, the festival’s executive director, wrote the essay below.

Appreciate The Perspective

It’s human nature to be focused on things that feel important, whether they be past or future.

Whether lamenting a missed opportunity, or dreaming of things to come, our minds seem to spend more time on the before and after than they do on the here and now.

Rooster Walk’s motto, “Appreciate the Present,” is an intentional reaction to that tendency. No one can control what happened in the past. And while the future may be a promise, it’s not guarantee. All we really have, for sure, is the present.

This, Very Moment.

Watch a video of The Stews performing at Rooster Walk on May 25 via YouTube:

That’s the gift we strive to celebrate here at Rooster Walk. Our Festival origins were rooted in the loos of two childhood friends, Edwin ‘the Rooster’ Penn and Walker Shank. This festival was created, and remains, an event celebrating their lives. In the past decade plus, it’s also grown into a festival celebrating life, in general.

While you’re hanging with us at Pop’s Farm, try to “be where your feet are,” Let the “what if” and “what could be” thoughts float off into the ether. The stress or excitement that may be waiting for you back in the real world doesn’t have to be part of your experience this weekend.

Instead, take a moment to appreciate the breeze in your hair, or the burrito in your hand. The guitar solo on stage, or the comfort of a dry sleeping bag.

And make no mistake: this approach doesn’t have to be all the rainbows and butterflies, so long as you’re looking for upside. Sure, thunderstorms at Rooster Walks past inconvenient and even annoying. But when the skies cleared, the roads weren’t as dusty, and the sunshine was a gift (instead of an expectation). That’s called perspective, and a positive approach to perspective can make everything easier.

Even if it is easier said than done.

Watch The Wilson Springs Hotel perform at Rooster Walk on May 26 via YouTube:

When you’re looking for more negatives, you will find them. But when you start looking for more positives, you’ll find those, too.

So give a hug to your friend or family member for no apparent reason. Let ‘em know how much they mean to you,, just in case you haven’t said it out loud recently. Be grateful for both the sunshine on a beautiful May Day in Virginia, as well as the long line for a slice a pizza.

After all, if you really think about it, we’re lucky to have this opportunity just to stand in that line. We all know some who don’t.

Johnny Buck
Executive Director

Watch Jon Stickley Trio host The Jimmy Jam at Rooster Walk on May 26 (playing Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”) via YouTube:

The Rooster Walk 13 band lineup was:
Greensky Bluegrass Ft. Holly Bowling, St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, The Marshall Tucker Band, Neal Francis, Kitchen Dwellers, Doom Flamingo, Trouble No More, Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears, The Lil Smokies, ORGŌNE, Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country, Brandon ‘Taz’ Niederauer, Dangermuffin, AAL Ron Holloway, AAL Jeff Sipe, AAL Josh Shilling, AAL Erin Lunsford, AAL Wallace Mullinax, AAL Robby Carden, AAL Jake Dempsey, Neighbor, Mike & The Moonpies, Kelsey Waldon, The Stews, Crawford & Power, Jon Stickley Trio, Erin & The Wildfire, Sol Driven Train, The Judy Chops, Songs From The Road Band, Dave Eggar Band, Sneezy, The Jared Stout Band, Cristina Vane, Empire Strikes Brass, Into The Fog, The Wilson Springs Hotel, Isaac Hadden Organ Trio, TC Carter Band, Sanctum Sully, Blue Cactus, Rob Cheatham and Co., Big Fat Gap, Jules & The Agreeables, Oh, Christopher, P&HCC Jazz, Pirates of the Piedmont and JAM Program.

Watch the Rooster Walk House Band with Ron Holloway, Erin Lunsford, and Isaac Hadden perform at Rooster Walk on May 26 via YouTube:

Here are some photos of the Rooster Walk Music and Arts Festival at Pop’s Farm in Martinsville, Virginia, on May 25-28, 2023. All pictures copyright and courtesy of Chester Simpson.

The Stews