Jomeokee Music & Arts Festival
Pinnacle, N.C.
Jomeokee was only held once, in September 2012.
Jomeokee Music & Arts Festival
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The Smilefest and Headjamz festivals joined in 2012 to create the Jomeokee Music & Arts Festival at the Jomeokee Park campground in Pinnacle. The park's natural amphitheater in sight of Pilot Mountain creates a near-perfect setting for an outdoor show.
Jomeokee's two-stage festival presents bluegrass and Americana acts on the main stage, and jam, funk and world music bands on the second stage.
The tiny workshop stage is in the woods a couple-hundred yards to the left of the amphitheater. It is named for Lester Flatt, the bluegrass icon who owned the park and presented summer festivals there in the late 1970s. (Folks are looking to the left in the photo belowfor a question from an audience member.)
Music festivals in Pinnacle date to the the 1960s, when Gary McGhee and the Pinnacle Volunteer Fire Department began hosting a fiddlers' convention at the local school. It moved to the park with Flatt from 1975 to 1979, and a local country radio station presented shows there in the 1980s and '90s.
Back at the amphitheater, merchandise vendors line the top of the hill, and about half-a-dozen surprisingly good food vendors were located left of the stage. A print-onsite T-shirt booth and a CD booth were set out to the right of the stage area.
Of course there's plenty of room to camp at Jomeokee, including spots in the woods or the open field near the amphitheater, and more secluded sites along a road that circles the grounds behind the stage area.
For the 2012 festival, at least, for an extra fee you could park your car next to your campsite ("vehicle camping") as opposed to hauling your gear from the parking lot. (There were also a limited number of RV sites.) There's hardly a level spot of ground in the park, and our photo below does not capture the length or steepness of the parking lot hill.
And, while we're nitpicking, the festival allowed these half-dome sunshade tents in the amphitheater during the 2012 show. The festival was far from crowded and it was easy to avoid any obstructed views, but if a party plopped down in front of you and popped one of these up, well ...
But we are nitpicking. We dealt with the Jomeokee staff on a couple of occasions and with vendors, and talked to several people in the crowd and around where we camped over the course of the festival, and they were altogether one of the friendliest groups of people we've ever spent a weekend with.
In case you've wondered, the word "Jomeokee" is from the language of the Saura Indians, who once inhabited the area, and means "great guide" or "pilot," according to the campground's website.
Emcee Billy Jack, below with Patterson Hood, did his best to teach the audience to say "Jomeokee."
(You may need to click the sound file more than once to get it to run.)
Nearby, Pilot Mountain State Park offers camping, hiking and other activities.
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