High Sierra Music Festival Has Fantastic Year at New Venue

High Sierra Music Festival
Nevada County Fairgrounds, Grass Valley
July 2 – July 5, 2026

Photos by Paul Piazza

The 34th annual High Sierra Music Festival celebrated its first year at the Nevada County Fairgrounds in Grass Valley and things couldn’t have gone much better. The weather was perfect, the crowds were energized, and the musical performances were off the charts. The new venue worked out magically for the four-day festival, which takes place over the Fourth of July weekend, and will hopefully continue to be its home for years to come.

After facing increasing sustainability challenges, the festival had relocated from Quincy, its home for the last 25 years. And it has landed well. The Grass Valley facility offers a significant upgrade in terms of space and facilities, as well as having an abundance of overnight accommodations off-site. The latter was one of the biggest obstacles at its former home.

Musically, High Sierra Music Festival continued to set a high bar for being insanely loaded with talent from the top to the bottom of the lineup. The festival featured five stages that went all day long and into the night. The main stage featured acts like Steel Pulse, Don Was and the Pan Detroit Ensemble, Dumpstaphunk, Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, The Rumble, and The Word. The new location also featured a revamped, big tent Vaudeville Stage as well as an even larger outdoor version of the former Big Meadow called the Far Out Stage. There were also a pair of smaller indoor stages, The Pine Tree Stage and the Music Hall. Additionally, there was cool little hilltop spot for music called the Community Stage as well as the Ponderosa Stage for the late in the evening Troubadour Sessions. The Music Hall was repurposed at the tail of the day for the Late Night shows as well.

Eddie Roberts Robert Walter of The Breaks

As things got underway, music fans were faced with their usual mind-bending selection of a plethora of options that varied from New Orleans style roots and funk to psychedelic jam rock to contemporary bluegrass to gospel-tinged blues. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg at this event, which also featured its share of Americana, jazz and electronica. Some bands managed to dip into all of those influences. As is the standard at this festival, there was a little something for everyone.

Naturally, High Sierra Music Festival is a perfect place to find and fall in love with new favorite band or artist. One that you walk away wanting to know more about and see again soon. The Psycodelics were one of those bands. The South Carolina band, who spent the early part of this year touring with Durand Jones and the Indications, made quite an impact in two sets at the festival. This was particularly evident during a scorching late-evening set on the Pine Tree Stage. The band, who come from funk, blues, gospel, and R&B, left the audience reeling after leveling them with sounds that seemingly hit them like a freight train.

Another new artist who made a significant impression was young River Eckert, a 16 year-old piano prodigy from New Orleans. Eckert made an impact while playing his own great two sets of New Orleans roots music and then sitting in on a few more. The young man, who ended up hanging out for most of the weekend, enjoyed the festival. “I am really enjoying the vibe out here,” said Eckert while strolling around, taking in the festival. “People really bring the spirit at this festival.”

That spirit was in effect everywhere. As the festival hit its stride on the second day, a variety of creative Playshops began in the Music Hall. A few that really stood out included Lebo’s 50 years in the Rearview, which featured a rotating cast of musicians playing songs from 1976. It must also be mentioned that Lebo performed in a total of 14 sets during the four days joined by a variety of folks including George Porter Jr., the legendary Meters bassist on the main stage. There was also a great one by The Heeters, featuring Lorenzo Loera and Miles Blackwell of the California Honeydrops. They did a deep dive into the music of Stevie Wonder. Also standing out was a P-Funk tribute with The Rumble and Ronkat Spearman. Spearman played guitar and bass in Parliament/Funkadelic and this was a super deep funk set. There was also Good Vibrations, a set of Beach Boys songs by Anna Moss and friends.

Additionally, there was the festival debut of The Breaks, an all-star funk collaboration with drummer Stanton Moore of Galactic, guitarist Eddie Robert, and Keyboardist Robert Walter of The Greyboy Allstars, the latter of whom was most recently seen in the region touring arenas with Roger Waters. The band were fantastic. Another big treat was that both Dumpstaphunk and Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe played amazing tribute sets. Dumpstaphunk performed a tribute to Sly and the Family Stone that was deep and soulful with funk. Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe brought in guest vocalist Bernard Fowler to join them for a tribute to the immortal reggae songs of Jimmy Cliff. Fowler’s vibrato at the end of “Many Rivers to Cross” sent chills down the spines of many.

Much later each evening, there were the nightly Troubadour sessions, which featured roundtable acoustic collaborations with some of the festival’s top artistic talent. This happened in another room called Ponderosa Hall. During these sets, artists would play acoustic songs in a round robin format. One of those sets featured Anders Osborne, Cassandra Lewis, Steve Poltz, and Minor Gold. That is a stunning array of talent in one room.

As the weekend progressed, even more music blossomed in camps like the legendary Bitchin’ Kitchen, as well as in other camps. Bitchin’ Kitchen featured many of the festival’s top talents, including sets by Poltz, The Moga Family Band and Handmade Moments (featuring Anna Moss). Bitchin’ Kitchen was more centrally located than it had been previously, and had much more music than ever before as well. Up on the Community Stage, there were great sets by The Gold Souls, Blue Egyptian, and Boot Juice. Boot Juice also opened the festival with the very first set on the Main Stage.

Soccer Match with the Home Team String Band

Another element that added to all of it, was that this year’s festival took place during the World Cup, which happens every four years. Naturally, there was a group of soccer loving musicians, who had driven straight from Santa Clara, where they had watched the US World Cup match the night before. They arrived in their custom-painted “Home Team” soccer bus. In the spacious international flag-covered area in their camp, they mounted a large screen TV on the side of their bus and showed all of the World Cup matches. This drew soccer fans from all over the festival, many of whom had brought their favorite teams jersey to wear. The hosts also had their own Home Team String Band, which had a catchy tune called “Hydration Break” song set to the tempo of Bob Marley’s “Rastaman Vibration. It was a big camp hit. They played it during the matches’ hydration breaks and the song turned into one big singalong.

Naturally, many members of the bands at the festival also shared a love of soccer and music. One of the members of The Rumble dropped by in an Mbappe jersey. Two of the members of LeSpecial dropped in, with bassist Luke Bemand sporting a Jude Bellingham kit, in honor of England, who surprised many in the crowd by prevailing over Mexico. Later, Bemand would have his Bellingham jersey hanging from his bass amp during the band’s vividly memorable set at the Far Out Stage.

During that set, the band went from Fela Kuti’s “Zombie,” to the intro of Slayer’s “Reign in Blood,” which incited a hippie pit and an enormous dust storm from the dry surrounding hill. To ramp things up further, the band were then joined by Jay Lane, the former Primus drummer on “Too Many Puppies” (Lespecial drummer Rory sang) and also played a Sausage tune (a Les Claypool project which also featured Lane) called “Riddles Are Abound Tonight.” This kicked up even more dust clouds, much to the delight of the band and the fans. Lane had joined the band the previous night for a Primus tune at the Vaudeville Stage as well. He also sat in on a number of other sets around the festival throughout the weekend.

Speaking of soccer, Boy Golden (Liam Duncan), a Cosmic Country artist from Winnipeg Canada who performed at the festival, was actually set to play a FIFA watch party a few days later in Vancouver. He is a pretty well-established act in Canada, but still trying to break through in the US. Duncan, who played two sets with his band at the festival and participated in the festival’s first Troubadour Session, has had a music evolution since his youthful days of playing in an indie rock band. He started the Boy Golden Project almost a decade ago and started writing songs, which vary from lighthearted romps to philosophical observation on the condition of the world.

As a child, his parents took him to the massive Winnipeg Folk Festival annually, which exposed him to artists like Todd Snider and Gillian Welch. His excellent recent record, Best of Our Possible Lives, features the enormous studio talents of Pino Palladino on bass and drummer Abe Rounds. His touring band is a group of highly-skilled longtime collaborators, which impressed the High Sierra crowd. “We come and do these festivals because there are music lovers here and we want them to love our music,” said Duncan in a chat before hitting the Far Out Stage. “If our music could find an audience anywhere in America, I would love it to be on the West Coast, because I love it out here.”

Meanwhile, Judith Hill brought her parents along to the festival for her performances. The parents of the soulful and funky R&B vocalist/guitarist actually comprise 50% of her band. Bassist Pee Wee Hill and keyboardist Michiko Hill are well known in the funk world and Michiko blew a lot of people away with her chops. As did daughter Judith, who displayed incredible vocal power and some pretty tasty guitar chops. Speaking of vocals, Cassandra Lewis also blew people away with her singing, which features stunning sustain and some describe as a fever dream between Joni Mitchell and Marty Robbins.

The amazing Columbian trio BALTHVS, who’s bassist Johanna Mercurial and guitarist Balthazar Aguirre have a young child together, mesmerized the crowd with their psychedelic funk grooves. Later that day, keyboardist Holly Bowling, who brought her three-week old to his first festival, was playing tour manager for her four-year old at Bitchin’ Kitchen where he sat in on drums for a spell. David Shaw of the Revivalists, who didn’t perform, was chasing his two and half year-old around and she was having the time of her life. All over camp, families and music went together. There was a wonderful Family Village area that kept kids busy with crafts and entertainment if they and their parents needed a break from the surrounding festivities.

Meanwhile, as the music was going everywhere, many fans just strolled the festival and took it all in, savoring it slowly. The Nevada County Fairgrounds has an abundance of tall Sugar Pines that offer not only shade, but contribute to the beautiful landscape. Some people just enjoyed chatting in a hilly picnic area as music could be heard in the air. Others sprawled on blankets. And others just leisure in the wonderful atmosphere. That was the case for Myles and Lindsey, who had traveled out from Park City,Utah for their very first High Sierra. When asked how they were enjoying the festival, they looked at each other and said they were already planning on coming back next year.

Here’s a slideshow with more photos from the Festival by Paul Piazza: