Friday At The Hangout Festival: Black Crowes, Robert Randolph…

Videos by American Songwriter

All photos by Jamie Younger

The inaugural Hangout Festival got off to a great start Saturday, with cerulean skies and no trace of oil on the beaches to be found. The Black Crowes played Friday night on the main stage, jamming to several old nuggets, including “Jealous Again,” “She Talks To Angels” and “Hard To Handle.” The show was well attended, as festivalgoers continued to stream in as the day progressed. “The southern children love their rock and roll,” lead singer Chris Robinson said at the start of the show.

Later this summer, the Black Crowes will release Croweology, a double, all-acoustic album of past hits and deeper cuts that spans their 20-year career.

Robert Randolph, pedal steel guitarist par excellence, played Friday afternoon in the clamping humidity. Toward the end of the set, Randolph got the crowd grooving with Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” a state of mind many patrons were experiencing after imbibing in the heat.

Festival promoter Shaul Zislin did not have a head count for Friday, but said he expected 20,000 each day for the rest of the festival.

Pnuma Trio, an electronic hip-hop group out of Memphis, kept the energy going Friday afternoon.

When Mashup king Girl Talk took the stage, Hangout patrons abandoned all inhibition and shook what their mamma had given them.

The Tilt-A-Whirl, looming in the distance like a monument to fun.