Raindrops kept falling on their heads at 21st edition of Project Troubador Grove Festival

LAKEVILLE — Eliot Osborn looked a little worried in the hour or so before the 21st annual Project Troubador Grove Festival last Saturday, June 26. The clouds were gray and heavy. The evening sky was threatening.

But, as he said several times throughout the evening, a little rain doesn’t discourage diehard Grove Fest fans.

And although the lawn at the Grove at Lakeville’s Lake Wononscopomuc wasn’t as packed as it could possibly be, there was certainly a respectable number of people spread out on blankets and low-slung chairs — despite occasional light showers.

These fest fans had come out to picnic, to meet up with friends, family and acquaintances, to swim in the twilit air in the cool lake water.

And they had come to enjoy the eclectic mix of music, dance and foreign cultures that is the hallmark of the Grove Fest .

The festival is hosted by Project Troubador, a group founded in 1978 by Osborn and Louise Lindenmeyr as a way to promote cultural understanding through music.

During the past 32 years, the nonprofit group has visited and performed in Haiti, Cuba, Guatemala, Ethiopia and Russia.

Their performances include musicians, clowns, dancers and a variety of performing artists who put on shows in cultural centers (including town squares), schools, hospitals and other gathering places. Some of the performances have an educational message, about how to avoid AIDS, for example. Other shows are simply meant as a way to introduce American performers of all kinds to people in foreign lands.

“Music is common to all cultures and doesn’t need to be explained to anybody,†Osborn said. “When you have a lecture in one language, it has to be translated into another language. You don’t need to do that with music. It’s common to everyone and we can all go away with an experience.â€

The annual Grove Festival, according to Lindenmeyr, acts as a way to bring culture back from those overseas nations to the local community.  It is also meant as a way to say thank you to supporters of Project Troubador.

Although there is an entrance fee, the festival is not a fundraiser, Lindenmeyr and Osborn said. The money raised at the gate just helps to pay the expenses of the performers, most of whom come to Lakeville from out of state.

“When we first started the Grove Festival we had only 100 people show up,†Lindenmeyr said in an interview before the show. “Now we’re up to a thousand.â€

“Music is an international language,†Lindenmeyr said. “It brings everyone together and breaks down stereotypes.â€

The festival has evolved into a sort of mellow melting pot — and that mellowness must extend even to one’s attitude toward the weather. It often rains during the Grove Fest. It sometimes rains quite hard. But unless the precipitation begins to endanger either the audience or the performers (most of whom are amplified with electric equipment), the show goes on.

Nonetheless, the cloudy hours before the show can be a little tense for its organizers.

“My job is to think it’s going to rain, just to make sure that everyone in the crowd doesn’t think it’s going to rain,†Osborn said, as he eyed the sky skeptically at a little before 5 p.m.

It started to drizzle when the first act (The Joint Chiefs, featuring Osborn and Lindenmeyr, and bass player George Potts), performed. The Chiefs open every festival; that way early arrivals are entertained but the featured performers come on later, when the crowd is larger.  

However, the rain slowly let up, allowing Argentine singer Sofia Tosello and her band to perform.

A large crowd (including many small children) came up to the stage for the second act: tango dancing lessons from New York City dance instructors (and tango dancers) Daniela Pucci and Diego Blanco.

The final performance of the night was the multi-cultural band Red Baraat, a funkified mixture of Indian-inspired brass, solid rhythms and chants — all to a dance beat that had everyone in the crowd up and dancing.

By the time the band finished their first song, a crowd of more than 100 people literally danced up a storm — as the rain finally began to pour down.

However, after the band played its second song, the storm stopped and the concert continued until 10 p.m. The audience refused to let the band go without playing an encore.