Students and Evanston residents lay on picnic blankets and towels on Norris University Center’s East Lawn wearing tie-dye T-shirts and bandanas Sunday. Some hoisted one another into trees, while others smoked hookah.
Between 450 and 500 people showed up for Philfest, an annual bluegrass festival, which this year featured Carbon Leaf with opening acts The Earth is a Man and Tangleweed. Students for Ecological and Environmental Development co-sponsored the event with A&O Productions.
Will Crouse, drummer for The Earth is a Man, sat in the grass with Communication senior Larkin Brown and watched Carbon Leaf perform.
“It’s great,” the Communication junior said. “Right here on the lawn, Northwestern is actually coming together-it’s really nice.”
“It’s bringing out all the hippies you never see on campus,” Brown added.
The event is held in honor of Phil Semmer, an NU student and SEED member who died in a car accident while studying abroad in 2000. SEED sold raffle tickets and collected donations for the Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental organization where Semmer had hoped to work.
While bantering with the crowd, Carbon Leaf lead singer Barry Privett said they didn’t really consider themselves a bluegrass band as the festival typically calls for, though he said they were very enthusiastic about the cause. Between playing their song “Raise the Roof” and a cover of The Beatles’ “Dear Prudence,” Privett announced that 50 percent of the proceeds from their merchandise sales would be given to SEED’s fundraiser.
“It’s beautiful that you guys continue it, when you consider that this is a guy that went to school here 10 years ago, and obviously most of you didn’t know him,” he said.
SEED co-chair Emmaline Pohnl was carried by her friends to the front of the stage, where many people had started to come together and dance as Carbon Leaf played. The SESP junior said she was pleased with the afternoon’s turnout.
“At the beginning we were a little nervous because there weren’t as many people,” she said. “But I think once Tangleweed came on, more people came.”
Weinberg junior Nick Cizek said he stumbled on Philfest last year and decided to come back again for a relaxed afternoon listening to bluegrass and soft rock.
“I dig this music,” he said. “Rarely do people come together to listen to music that I think is actually good to hear, and this is an exception.”
Behind the group of students watching the concert, a few environmental student groups had also set up tables to promote awareness. The Program in Environmental Policy and Culture was giving out homemade cookies, and SEED had pots and seeds for people to take home and plant in their own gardens.
Pohnl said she thought Philfest was “the highlight of May so far.”
“The weather is beautiful, and it’s good for people to be outside,” she said. “We’re always cooped up in the library doing work, so being able to come out and enjoy the weather and see great music has been a lot of fun.”
