We are well into music festival season this summer, but there’s one you may not have heard about. It’s Doah Fest, near Luray. WMRA’s Christopher Clymer Kurtz reports.
Doah Fest organizer Josh Turner has always felt that his family’s 300 acres along the Shenandoah River is just too good not to share.
TURNER: The fishing is great, the swimming is great, just being on the river is terrific, and then you've got the mountains.
Turner, who lives and works as an accountant in Northern Virginia and is a big music festival fan, threw the first Doah Fest four years ago and hopes this year for 750 attendees. The main stage faces Kennedy Peak from a hay field, a riverside stage overlooks midday swimmers, and the families-only campground sits on the opposite side of the property from the late-night stage, which after 1:00 in the morning turns into a silent disco with two DJs.
The lineup this fourth year includes, among many others, Virginia bands Hemingway [“Middle Ground”], Annie Stokes ["You Were Gone"], and The Travelin’ Hillbillies [“All in Good Company”].
Two weeks after Doah Fest, Turner and his co-organizers, an uncle and a college friend, will host another festival, for a second year. It’s called Shensara, and focuses on yoga, meditation, and centered wellness.
TURNER: You get to come out here and party, and have a great time, and then two weeks later you get to zen out and do some meditation and get back to being centered in.