WATCH NOW First Harmony Hill Music Festival ends on a high note | Local News
The group On Bended Knee opens…
The group On Bended Knee opens up the Harmony Hill Music Festival in Harmony on Saturday.
Audience members clap along as On Bended Knee performs at Harmony Hill Music Festival in Harmony on Saturday.
Keith Mason of the group On Bended Knee talks before his group performs at Harmony Hill Music Festival in Harmony on Saturday.
The Freedom Way Quartet performs at the Harmony Hill Music Festival in Harmony on Saturday.
The Primitive Quartet was the final group to perform at Harmony Hill Music Festival in Harmony on Saturday.
The Primitive Quartet was the final group to perform at Harmony Hill Music Festival in Harmony on Saturday.
Bob Hogan, left, and Wesley Dezern of the Harmony Hill Campmeeting speak before the beginning of the Harmony Hill Music Festival in Harmony on Saturday.
The first song sung at the first annual Harmony Hill Music Festival wasn’t by any of the bands listed on the lineup for the inaugural event. It was the crowd gathered that sang the old gospel standard, “Victory in Jesus.”
That’s not how the group band On Bended Knee had it planned, but while one of their singers raced back to the inaugural event, they had to stall for time. Along with the Freedom Way Quartet, they sang the first two verses of a tune familiar to everyone in attendance.
Everyone, including Keith Mason of On Bended Knee, seemed pleased to be fellowshipping after a strange 12 months of the COVID-19 pandemic and Saturday’s event was a chance to take a step back toward normalcy.
“We just now started to get back into it. Churches just really started to open back up,” Mason said. But he was grateful to be singing in front of a crowd. “It was great,”
Dozens gathered to hear gospel music under the tent set up and around it while children played on inflatables nearby and vendors served food and drinks.
The event’s organizers said that while the Harmony Hill Campmeeting is still their signature event each October, they wanted to keep the momentum rolling instead of waiting a full year in between.
“With COVID and attendance being down in past years, we wanted to do something to promote it. As a kid, I could remember growing up with music in Harmony. I just wanted to bring that back and provide something that families could enjoy bringing their kids and being out,” Wesley Dezern said. He is the president of the Harmony Hill Campmeeting.
