Backwoods Accordion< /span> Festival 2025

Meet Captain Kate and Pirate Pete of The High Cs

My local music festival, the Backwoods Accordion Festival happens the 3rd weekend of July each year at the Trego Pub and General Store, just up the road from my home town of Fortine. The view of the forest and mountains from the outdoor venue is amazing, and after miserably hot weather in 2023 and 2024, we finally had a comfortable day in the mid 70s this year.

Headline act, the Carpathian Pacific Trio

A crowd of a couple hundred, mostly locals but a few from all over the world, enjoyed a full day of live music, as well as pizza, beer, and nachos served by the pub. The crowd-pleasing favorite was "The High C's", a duo from western Washington playing penny whistle and accordion, interspersed with the worst nautical-themed jokes you've ever heard. The advertised headliners were the Carpathian Pacific Trio, a Klezmer band out of Portland. The other acts were all Montana locals coming out to entertain friends and family, including Euphonium Spaceship, aka Pom and Kathi Collins, who do a lot of the behind the scenes organizing for the festival.

Sam Neff of Whitefish, amateur accordionist and enthusiastic folk dancer

A personal highlight for me was seeing the gentleman pictured at right on the stage. A retired physics professor in his late 80s, he and his wife can still out-dance everyone half their age when someone is playing waltzes and polkas and reels. I had the privilege of working on his accordion last winter to fix a stuck key. This was a historic moment: the first time an accordion I had repaired appeared on stage in front of an audience!

More pictures from the 2025 Backwoods Accordion Festival:

The view from the stage. Could you ask for better scenery?

Local arts and crafts vendors at the festival. Shop while you listen!

People from all over the world came to my little corner of Montana for the weekend.