“Music brings people together, breaks down barriers”

Photo: Dana Falconberry

LivelyLands festival returns to Empire Township, August 20-22

By Jacob Wheeler

Sun editor

The fields at Backyard Burdickville in Empire Township will come to life once again with the sound of music. The LivelyLands Music Festival returns, Aug. 20-22, to the former Empire Eagles’ campground on M-72, which the Lively family purchased in 2019. LivelyLands was canceled last year during the COVID-19 shutdown. With guitar picking and beautiful melodies crooning through the fields and forests, this intimate, “backyard” festival carries the legacy of Leelanau County summer music festivals.

LivelyLands, billed as a “boutique music festival of art, music, community, and food” kicks off Friday night, Aug. 20, with performances by Dana Falconberry and the trio of Gregory Stovetop, Mark Lavengood, and Seth Bernard. Falconberry, a Dearborn native who lived for years in the music mecca of Austin, Texas, sings melodic odes to rural Michigan. She and husband Jonathan Boyd moved to Benzie County recently with their vegan spring roll business “Rolls Rice,” which they produce at Grow Benzie. 

Festival organizer Emily Lively delighted in hearing Falconberry’s songs about northern Michigan on the radio in Austin, where she also lived until the pandemic drew her home. Falconberry’s 2012 album “Leelanau” offers a travelogue of both places on the map and of complex emotions stirred by memory.

“I’m such a fan of hers,” Lively said about Falconberry’s Friday night set. “That will be an intimate night of music.”

Saturday, Aug. 21, will feature performances by northern Michigan favorite Joshua Davis, upbeat Detroit band Laura Rain and Caesars, Leelanau native Emma Cook, and more Stovetop, Lavengood and Bernard. Sunday, Aug. 22, wraps the festival—in Austin style—with a bluegrass brunch on the lawn with breakfast tacos. Lavengood will host a bluegrass jam and song swap with a coterie of local musicians.

LivelyLands offers an intimate, family-friendly festival with no more than 30 campsites (book now; some are still available) and a kid’s show on Saturday morning. Guests are encouraged to bring their own picnics on Saturday to the Backyard Burdickville grounds, but no BYOB—alcohol will be sold on-site. The festival runs from 6-10 p.m. on Friday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. on Saturday, and noon-3 p.m. on Sunday. Visit TheLivelyLands.com for more information and to purchase tickets.

A musical journey home

“I went into music in the first place because it brings people together and breaks down barriers more than other mediums can,” said Emily Lively, who grew up on her family’s farm on Bow Road near Burdickville and graduated from Glen Lake School in 2003. The communal nature of music has rung especially true during this lonesome and bewildering global pandemic. 

“Being able to finally gather in one way or another over music [is] really healing,” she said.

Lively worked as a housing and traveling specialist for Austin’s famed South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival in Austin, where she met her now-husband Robert Chacon. They spent summers here in Leelanau County, where they launched LivelyLands in 2017, albeit on the Lively family farm. 

COVID-19 upended their lives in many ways. SXSW was canceled in 2020 for the first time in a quarter century, prompting major layoffs (it was virtual in 2021). The couple canceled their April 2020 wedding and decided instead to skip town and return to northern Michigan together with their daughter Shirley, who was born in May 2019. Emily’s father and sister drove to Texas to help them pack their things just as the western hemisphere was shutting down.

“Moving our family was the hardest part,” she reflected. “But once we got home and I lay Shirley down in a field, I felt blessed to have such access to open spaces. Our silver lining has been to be home with family.”

Their second child, Arthur Felo, was born in November 2020.

With the Delta variant prolonging—and potentially exacerbating—the pandemic, the festival is taking precautions. Musicians and staff traveling from outside northern Michigan are required to take COVID tests before they leave home, and again after they arrive in Empire. Emily’s team on-site is fully vaccinated. 

She said that LivelyLands will encourage mask wearing and social distancing at the festival, even outdoors.