SALISBURY — The Bell Tower Green in downtown Salisbury came alive on Saturday for Earth Day Jam, the farm-to-festival event hosted by local nonprofit Happy Roots.

A day filled with cold drinks, food and friends was enough to make anyone smile, but for the music enthusiasts, the showcase of entertainment represented just what a musical destination that Salisbury is. 

Blake Christiana performs vocals and plays guitar for the band Yarn, which belted out tracks from beneath the amphitheater between the 4-5 p.m. time slot. Over the years, Christiana has made a few stops in Salisbury and he’s seen Earth Day Jam grow from humble beginnings. 

“I just love this town,” Christiana said of Salisbury. 

He commended Happy Roots Founder and Director Ashley Honbarrier for organizing an event that he said is run as smoothly as the best of festivals he has experienced. 

“She is one of the anomalies in the business, just low stress and smiling all the time,” Christiana said. “She is cool as hell. Whatever is going on, maybe it’s running so smoothly there is nothing to stress out about. I throw a festival myself every year, so I understand it. It can be small but it’s still a lot of work and a lot of things get thrown at you, expected or unexpected. I think she’s just fantastic at it.”

Fellow musicians Steven Hall and Micah Cottingham, collectively known as falllift, agreed. Hall and Cottingham has performed at festivals around the country. They concluded a two-month nationwide tour in January and are scheduled to a play a festival in Bentonville, Arkansas, this weekend. 

“It is amazing how fast Ashley (Honbarrier) has been able to grow the festival in all of the aspects,” Hall said. “The artist relations are the best I have ever experienced for a small town festival, similar to larger, long-standing ones.”

Hall indicated that Honbarrier paid close attention to the artists, which he said is not always a given at festivals. 

“It’s easy when people put on festivals to forget about artists’ needs and production needs and the actual music part,” Hall said. “It feels really high-end and really respected. Our schedule was exactly what it was supposed to be. Everything went very smoothly. There were people shuttling equipment from cars to stages. That is a major thing for a small festival. The production and sound and visual team is next level.”

Hall credited the large staff and all-hands-on-deck approach that involved numerous volunteers all working towards the same goals. 

Looking at it from a guest’s perspective, Hall said he was thrilled that the VIP tent access allowed him and other artists at the festival to engage with attendees in an intimate setting. 

“I like being among the public,” Hall said. “As a patron I would like to be able to be in the same spot as the musicians. I am just like wow, they just made me feel so great and there they are.”

Hall was also grateful for the shaded tent and the locally-sourced food options. 

All in all, Hall said that Honbarrier has curated what a festival is supposed to be.

“There is a culture to festival life and I think that Ashley is really capturing,” Hall said. “It’s about making people feel important for being there. It feels like a great time for everybody. First of all, it is a free festival. You have an amazing park that is like a kids dreamland. You have multiple music stages. It’s like a mystery behind every corner.”

Hall also mentioned that the park’s relatively small perimeter does not actually limit the way the festival feels.

“It’s a small festival but it feels large,” Hall said. “You have the whole city jumping in on it. It’s just a really really perfect spot. I hope that it can stay there and not get too big.”

While Hall performed on the Main Stage, the Sunshine Stage offered plenty of music, too, from bands like The Stokes, Vess and The Fidgets w/ CJ Sunshine. There really was no shortage of tunes throughout the day. 

Saturday was Gary Yelton’s first time at Earth Day Jam, but for the frequent festival flyer, it was not a bad place to start and Earth Day Jam’s billing as a farm-to-festival event really stood out. 

“This was my first one,” Yelton said. “We picked a good one. The weather was great … We thought the food was fantastic. Locally grown, farm to festival. It was great. Every course that we had was fantastic. And Andy from New Sarum, his beers paired up with it perfectly.”

Yelton and his wife Leigh go to festivals throughout the region as lovers of music. They were both excited about seeing Yarn, a band that they have seen on numerous occasions, but the other bands surprised them with how good they were.  

“It was very well organized,” Yelton said. “The band lineup was good all the way from the young folks up to more experienced musicians. That is one thing I like about festivals, you get to see young up-and-coming bands.”

With such seamless transitions between the bands on stage and the access to amenities, Yelton described the event as relaxing. 

“That is a good thing about it; the real relaxed atmosphere,” Yelton said. “Festival goers are just fun to hang out with. You meet new people, you talk about the bands and you make new friends.”

Yelton pointed to one other part of Saturday’s lineup that resonated with him.

“One good thing about the festival, you get to see some collaboration where you get one band that invites some members of another band up to play guitar or whatever it is,” Yelton said. “You are not going to see that anywhere. Usually at some of the festivals at the end, they bring up everybody and have big jam sessions.”

Those performances aren’t going to make it onto an album, so as Yelton mentioned, you just had to be there. In this case, he’s glad that he and Leigh were.

The festival’s main stage lineup featured Abby Bryant and Empire Strikes Brass in the two time slots from 5:30-6:30 p.m. and then 7-8 p.m., respectively. When the headliner Devon Gilfillian took the stage at 8:30 p.m. for his set, he intermittently invited both acts to the stage at various points to collaborate. 

To learn more about Happy Roots, go to https://www.happyrootsnc.org/.

Check out falllift’s new single, “Geronimo Minor,” which is set to drop on streaming platforms this Sunday.

Yarn also has a single coming out this week on Friday and are releasing an album on July 26. The band’s music is also available on streaming platforms.