The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass free music festival (www.hardlystrictlybluegrass.com/2014/) is one of my favorite events of the year and it’s happening next weekend – Friday 10/3 through Sunday 10/5 – in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco.  There are a multitude of great performers on many stages in a beautiful setting.

I thought I’d share my plan of attack for this year.  When a second band appears in parenthesis that’s my second choice at that time.  Sometimes you have to make hard choices.  Enjoy!

FRIDAY OCT 3

• 1:15pm Buckwheat Zydeco [Arrow Stage];  (The Waybacks [Banjo Stage])
• 12:00pm Peter Rowan’s Twang An’ Groove [Banjo Stage]
• 2:40pm John Prine [Banjo Stage] (2:45pm Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin with The Guilty Ones [Star Stage])
• 4:00pm Cibo Matto with Nels Cline [Arrow Stage]
• 4:30pm Lucinda Williams [Star Stage]

SATURDAY OCT 4

• 1:25pm: The Time Jumpers Featuring Vince Gill, Kenny Sears, Dawn Sears and Ranger Doug Green [Banjo Stage]
• 2:10pm: Justin Townes Earle [Star Stage]
• 2:45pm: Holler Down The Hollow: A Hardly Strictly Salute To the Masters (Dickens, Hellman, Reed, Scruggs, Seeger, Watson & Winchester) [Banjo Stage]
• 3:55pm: Mavis Staples [Star Stage]
• 5:30pm: Robert Earl Keen [Rooster Stage]
• 5:45pm Steve Earle & The Dukes [Banjo Stage]; (Chris Isaak [Star Stage])
• 6:15pm The Flatlanders Featuring Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore & Butch Hancock [Arrow Stage]

SUNDAY OCT 5

• 11:00am Malawi Mouse Boys [Banjo Stage]
• 11:40am Jimmie Dale Gilmore [Bandwagon Stage]
• 1:25pm Jerry Douglas Presents Earls of Leicester [Banjo Stage]
• 2:45pm Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys [Banjo Stage]; (Chuck Prophet & the Mission Express [Rooster Stage])
• 3:40pm Béla Fleck & Abigail Washburn [Towers Of Gold Stage]
• 4:00pm T Bone Burnett [Rooster Stage]
• 5:20pm Dwight Yoakam [Towers Of Gold Stage]
• 5:45pm Emmylou Harris [Banjo Stage]
• 6:10pm Bruce Cockburn [Star Stage]