The Timberline Mountain Music Festival will not take place this coming Labor Day 2020. This free annual outdoor music festival held in Timberline Lodge’s historic outdoor amphitheater evolved from a celebration of Timberline’s 75th anniversary in 2012 into a popular summer’s end annual appreciation party for the local mountain community. Due to the uncertainties around COVID-19 social distancing protocols, and because everyone’s health and safety is our number one consideration, we are bringing the festival to a close for now, and will re-assess it going forward in future years. Thank you to all of our amazing performers, helpful talent agents, enthusiastic vendors, Stew Dodge Sound, our wonderful festival workers, and generous sponsors over the past 8 years.
Timberline’s popular Labor Day Mountain Music Festival celebrated the songs of the Grateful Dead in 2019. The show, featuring four bands including the Garcia Birthday Band, was dubbed “Steal Your Mountain” and delved into the Americana roots of the Dead’s music, featuring songs influenced by folk, blues, bluegrass and early rock and roll music. We served it all up the way it is best experienced – through a dynamic interaction with the audience and with the good-time vibes of an outdoor festival.
SCROLL DOWN to relive the experience with a commemorative video.
JOIN US in the amphitheater on September 2, 2019, for STEAL YOUR MOUNTAIN Timberline's Labor Day Mountain Music Festival!
Admission is free to the Timberline Mountain Music Festival thanks to the operators of Timberline Lodge and event sponsors Mt. Hood Brewing Co. and Farmer Brothers. Enjoy Timberline’s food and beverages on the back “pickin’ patio.” Bring an instrument to join in the jams lead by the Taborgrass Players, and visit with various groups staffing outreach tables including the Friends of Timberline, the Pacific Crest Trail Association, the Oregon Bluegrass Association, and the United States Forest Service.
Musical performances are rain or shine - 12:00 noon to sunset.
EAT & DRINK at the Timberline Mountain Music Festival.
Timberline’s awesome culinary team is fired up to offer some killer munchies on the back patio, along with a Boyd’s Coffee Cart and a Mt. Hood Brewing Co. beer and wine garden.
Timberline’s other restaurants are open during the festival. Cascade Dining Room – breakfast and lunch buffets, casual fine dining for dinner (reservations recommended for dinner). Ram’s Head Bar – family-friendly food and drinks with a view. Blue Ox Bar – killer pizzas, cocktails, and beer. Wy’East Cafe – grab & go salads, sandwiches, and snacks.
No dogs or picnic lunches please.
THIS IS THE 8TH annual Timberline Mountain Music Festival! We have hosted musicians from as close as Government Camp to as far away as Ireland.
“I focus on presenting larger bands, and new, younger talent, folks who are out on tour and playing the summer festival circuit,” says event organizer Jon Tullis, ” Our festival is just a few days before the Sisters Folk Festival, so I often feature some of the artists who are headed that way. It’s a win/win for everyone, and I have been able to present some really tasty acts such as Nora Jane Struthers and the Party Line, Eli West and Cahalen Morrison, and the amazing quartet called Darlingside who went on to be named Folk Alliance Artist of the Year in 2016.”
Opening the Mountain Music Festival this year at noon will be local favorites Fingers and Chilly with Eric Kallio. Their acoustic set will celebrate the folk roots of the Grateful Dead including such early classics as Shady Grove, Morning Dew, and Deep Elem Blues. Band leader Tom “Fingers” Franklin is joined by his longtime musical partner Denis “Chilly “ Denault with a special appearance by our mountain maestro of the slide guitar and Dobro, Eric Kallio.
Next on stage at 1:15pm is the popular Portland band The Columbians featuring Peter ‘Spud' Siegel on mandolin, Joel Marshal on guitar, and Bill Uhlig on up-right bass. They will shift gears to pay tribute to the old timey and bluegrass influence on the Dead’s music. They will be joined by Stew Dodge, one of Oregon’s finest bluegrass fiddlers, to cover such “Old and In the Way” bluegrass classics as Midnight Moonlight and Hobo Song.
We’ve gotten word out of Portland that Steve Bradley, the founder, guitar player, and front man for legendary U.S. Cadenza is experiencing a little health problem at this time and will be unable to perform at the Timberline Mountain Music Festival. The bandmates got together and decided that without Steve Bradley, it just wouldn’t be the U.S. Cadenza, and have decided to cancel their performance. In magnanimous fashion, the Garcia Birthday Band will be stepping into the 3 p.m. slot to play a 45 minute set of Grateful Dead blues, with the U.S. Cadenza’s soulful and dynamic Johnny Ward on the harmonica. We all wish Steve a swift recovery!
The Garcia Birthday Band takes the stage at 4:30pm and will entertain while the sun slowly sets in this beautiful outdoor setting with Deadhead favorites, especially from the ‘71 & ’72 period when the Dead was at a creative high point touring Europe and laying down such crowd pleasers as Jackstraw, Sugar Magnolia, and Tennessee Jed. They are sure to bring back the good- time vibes that were contagious on tour back in that period and continue to fuel Deadheads to this day. We are thrilled to have the GBB at the festival. Few bands capture the magic of the Grateful Dead as well as Peter Bach, Justin John, Adam King, Scott Gillan, and Arthur Steinhorn. These are seasoned musicians who love and respect the music enough to bring their own style to it, their own jams, their own tight chops, and their own fine arrangements. These are musicians of the first order who thrill in celebrating the music of the Grateful Dead by taking the audience along with them on an immensely satisfying musical journey.
