Attending Boots and Hearts can be its own reason to celebrate, but Avery Paulen had an even better reason: it was her birthday.
She could have been anywhere in the world to celebrate her birthday. So why did she choose Boots and Hearts?
“Everyone likes to get (messed) up here, so I thought this is the place to be.”
Certainly, half of that sentence is true, but many people would be hard-pressed to find a lie in any part of her statement. For 40,000 or so people every year, Boots and Hearts is the place to be and definitely a place to get “messed up,” as any trip through the various camping areas would show you, especially during the daylight hours.
And like Paulen, so many of them seem to be here for the first time.
Sarah Howson and her daughter Elise are among the first-timers, joining Sarah’s other daughter Kira, here for a second year, and their friend Danielle Aquiar, here for her third time. Sarah was fully warned about what to expect, she said.
“I still came,” she said with a smile. The experience has been a good one for her so far.
“I think it’s pretty crazy,” she said. “It’s wicked to see the age range of people all coming together for one concert.”
As much as Boots and Hearts is the party of the summer for many, with some folks spending nearly the entirety of the festival at their campsite, playing countless rounds of flip cup and getting dangerously sunburned or, alternately, drenched, it is a concert and one music lovers mark on their calendars.
“I love concerts; I’m a sucker for a good concert,” Kira Howson said. “I just like the vibe. I’m a country music fan, so that helps.”
Aquiar, however, isn’t that much of a country fan and doesn’t know a lot of the music, beyond what she heard her mother play growing up and what she hears at work as a server at Lone Star Texas Grill.
But suggest any concert to her, and she’s on board.
“It’s not my type of music, but I can deal still,” she said. “Concerts in general, I like them. I’m the type of person if you invite me to a concert I’ll go, even if I don’t know who it is because I just like the atmosphere of it.”
That’s why Dustin Pineaux is at Boots and Hearts as well.
“I love festivals more than concerts. This is what I live for,” he said. “(I love) the travelling, the events, the different stages. At a concert, you’re stuck in a venue and that’s it. Here, I can over there, I can go on a ride if I want, or I can go to that stage over there.”
He’s also proof that the festival is about friendships – he couldn’t afford the cost of a ticket upfront, so a friend paid for the weekend pass and Pineaux is due to pay him back for the trouble.
But you don’t have to look too far around the grounds to see incredible examples of friendship unfolding in front of your eyes.
For every drunk bro threatening to either get handsy or throw hands, there are dudes like Riley Strickland and Gerard Bergen.
Around the dinner hour Friday, Strickland and Bergan could be seen wandering near the Front Porch Stage, shirtless, covered in black marker. They had Sharpies in hand and were welcoming anyone who would put an autograph on their bodies.
Not musicians, mind you, but random concert-goers.
The best part? They were complete strangers before the weekend.
“I found this guy in the parking lot and I started to get people to sign me,” Strickland said.
“We were having a beer in the parking lot because he was parked in front of us,” Bergen added.
That camaraderie was also found between Howson and her daughters, although perhaps without the significant alcohol intake – even if she said she was trying not to be the responsible one this weekend. Sarah Howson was quick to point out she didn’t bring her daughters to the festival, but rather they brought her.
“It was pretty wicked that my two teenage daughters are like ‘Mom, come,’” she said. “They still want to hang out and in an environment like this. They’re not embarrassed by having mom with them. And they’re going to be leaving soon, so there was no hesitation from me.”
Friday at Boots and Hearts was headlined by Nickelback and Hardy, both of whom were at the top of everyone’s list of bands to see for those attending this year. Big Wreck and JJ Wilde – who stole the show with her late afternoon set – also performed on the Front Porch Stage.
Saturday night at Burl’s Creek Event Grounds, when the largest crowd at Boots and Hearts is typically found, is headlined by Keith Urban, who last played during a torrential downpour in 2017. Dallas Smith and Danielle Bradbery were among the artists joining him on the main stage throughout the evening.
