If you wanted to don boots and a Western hat over Labor Day weekend, then Nashwood in Highwood was the place to strut.
Celebrate Highwood’s Nashwood, which brings Nashville, Tennessee sounds to the city of Highwood, featured three days of country music starting on Friday.
The goal by Celebrate Highwood was to turn Highwood into a fun honky-tonk row with country sounds throughout many venues in the Lake County city.
Nashwood fans were encouraged to bar hop or go from restaurants to park settings for country music, entertainment and line-dancing opportunities. Cell phone selfies were abundant as photo opportunities presented themselves around town.
Highwood Ald. Eric Falberg, principal of 28 Mile Distilling Co., a business also promoted on signage as 28 Mile Vodka Co. is president of Celebrate Highwood.
He said thousands of people attended the event over the weekend, with 28 Mile among the event destinations.
“It’s just one big music scene, which I love,” Falberg said.
It was his idea to launch Nashwood, which is now in its seventh year as an annual event. Falberg’s friends and colleagues took part in coining the name of the event.
“Country music’s become a lot more popular, and a lot more mainstream,” he said. “It’s taken over what Southern rock used to be. It’s taken from country rock, country blues, and people listen to it all over the country; all over the world now.”
Nashwood has become an important part of Celebrate Highwood’s yearly calendar, Falberg said, and more people are noticing Highwood with its country music, Nashville-inspired format.
“It’s been fun,” he said. “We’ve been trying to grow and accelerate who we are. We’re the odd little town on the North Shore that just likes to be creative.”
Four musicians took part in the Writers Circle on Saturday afternoon on the stage in 28 Mile’s Bourbon Lounge, including Stan Karcz, Payton Taylor, Kelsey Lamb and Taylor Goyette.
The Writers Circle is based on a Nashville writers roundtable, when musicians sit together and share original music with each other, taking feedback.
“It’s a great way to kind of be able to hear a little bit of each writer, a bit of their inspiration of what they do,” said Payton Taylor of Nashville, who explained to the audience between songs what a Writers Circle is.
Patron Jami Mandl of Morton Grove was at the Writer’s Circle collaboration.
“It’s a great music scene,” Mandl said about Highwood.
Sidewalks were busy on Saturday, with people going to destinations which were ideally spaced far enough apart and timed so the music could be heard and not conflict with each other.
Performing at Clucker’s Highwood in Sheridan Road was solo singer and guitarist Cindy Matzl of Northbrook.
“I feel honored to be here,” she said. “I do a wide variety of music outside of country, but I love this gig. This is my favorite gig of the year.”
Singer Masha Alferova of Libertyville performed with the band Epsilon+ at the new Mural Park Pavilion at Walker and Waukegan avenues.
“It’s exciting,” Alferova said. “We usually play in bars, so anytime we get a chance to play outside it’s always special.”
An amenity for attendees was the Hopalong Haywagon, which took riders around downtown Highwood. On Saturday, the featured performers were singer Jacie Jean of Oak Lawn and guitarist Travelin’ Dan.
“This is so cool,” Jean said with a smile between songs.
Harlow Pierce, 4, of Highland Park, danced to music being performed at Mural Park near Clucker’s.
“Highwood has lots of great, fun events and plenty of stuff to do out here with the kids,” Harlow’s father Bradley said. “Live music, it’s always fun.”
Strolling down a Waukegan Avenue sidewalk was A.J. Rodino of Highwood who held daughter Nora, 4, shoulder-style.
“We love Highwood,” he said. “We love festivals like this, and just being able to walk around and check things out like this is a beautiful thing.”
Access Highwood’s event calendar at https://www.celebratehighwood.org.
