Finally, we got to the main set of the evening, a star-studded event featuring Drunken Hearts. The excellent soulful rock’n’roll band opened with several originals before the cavalcade of stars began with Andy Thorn (Leftover Salmon), at which point I lost track of who was on stage with whom and when, but suffice to say that Charlie Rose (Elephant Revival), Silas Herman, Shawn Eckels (Andy Frasco & The U.N.), Michael Kirkpatrick, Andy Manz, and others performed to enthusiastic crowd response. Finally, Jason Hann returned along with his running buddy Dave Watts (The Motet) to put an exclamation point on the night.

Kirkpatrick was one of ten finalists chosen from among hundreds of entrants on the basis of the quality of their songs’ composition, vocal delivery and the overall performance. After performing in two finalist rounds during the festival, Kirkpatrick was named the winner and awarded cash and other prizes and performed a short set on the main stage following Yonder Mountain String Band on June 21.