CT Folk Fest & Green Expo
Edgerton Park
New Haven
Sept. 6, 2025
Toward the end of The Meadows Brothers’ set at the CT Folk Fest & Green Expo, Ian Meadows paused to explain the meaning of “Green Grass,” his original song.
“I spend a lot of time staring at a computer screen like many of you do, for work, or other, smaller screens, and this is a little reminder to take the time to watch the grass grow, to keep focused on all the cool stuff happening around you,” he said to 125 festival-goers assembled in lawn chairs on the park's upper lawn under hazy skies.
That was, it seemed, part of a larger theme at the festival, now in its 32nd year, which featured artisan vendors, local nonprofits, and an array of food trucks, along with a Green Kids Village and Green Expo.
With their self-described brand of “homegrown, folked-up, countrified, rocknrolled roots music,” the Meadows Brothers were part of a musical lineup that included blues master Robert Finley and Americana soul band Dust Bowl Revival, as well as Connecticut troubadour Kala Farnham. For the first time, a second stage, sponsored by Bigger Beast Records, showcased local artists.
“It feels really good to be here,” said Ian, after a soulful rendition of "Rock Island Line," with younger brother Dustin’s harmonica taking on the rhythms of a chugging train. Ian, a Coast Guard reservist, works at Electric Boat. Dustin is a painting contractor for Essex Painting Company.
The duo began their set with the plaintive “Songs For My Friends” from their 2025 release “In The Land Of Steady Habits,” a reference to their upbringing in the Rockwellian town of Chester, where the brothers, influenced by their music-loving parents, formed a rock band in elementary school. “There’s a pot of coffee brewing/and I’m taking time to think,” they sang, evoking the plain, unassuming language of John Prine.
Then came “Trouble,” the careworn, world-weary track that took home first prize in the 2021 Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest, an annual traditional and root-oriented music festival in Wilkesboro, N.C., founded by legendary guitarist Doc Watson.
“We were finalists, so we went down there to play the song and ended up winning the contest,” Dustin recalled, as someone dressed as a wizard threaded through the crowd, blowing bubbles amid the patchouli-scented air of homespun good will. “It was going on for 30 years, and it was the last one. Maybe it was us.”
The brothers seemed to come into their own in tributes to other heroes, including a haunting take on Bob Seger’s “Still The Same.” Sn uptempo version of The Band’s “Ophelia” (The Last Waltz) had audience members singing and moving to the music on the parched grass.
As the American-Argentine duo Eleanor & Dario performed crowd-pleasing songs that ranged from classics in Latin, French, and Portuguese to original music, Frank Viele, president of Bigger Beast Records, ambled over. He said the Connecticut Folk Festival approached the songwriter-focused independent record label about a partnership earlier this summer, with the goal of building a stage as a platform for regional talent.
“We’re honored to help build a bridge between the growing songwriter community in New England and the venerable institution that is this festival,” he said, clouds shading the area. The soothing tunes of the Westerly, R.I.-based folk music group Undercover Cameo closed out the afternoon on the Bigger Beast stage before the skies inopportunely opened.
Members of the Bigger Beast team then broke down the stage with dispatch, loading it onto a truck and decamping to Whitneyville Cultural Commons, where the rest of the acts performed.
Of this demonstration of New England ingenuity, Viele’s words were as simple and stripped-down as the lyrics of The Meadows Brothers. “The show went on,” he said.
