Time for an actual dance dance revolution

So yes I went to Butte again this weekend, and yes it was the folk festival, and yes I'm sorry you couldn't be there Olivia (we'll meet someday), and no Calvin wasn't even invited. Despite intermittent rain, sheer exhaustion, and a complete inability to actually hang out with all my friends who were down there, I had a good time. I got to rock the Tibetan sand mandala scene, the African-American tap dancing scene, Argentine tango scene, blah blah blah, made new friends and kept the old, blah blah blah, got a killer butt workout from walking up and down Butte's goddamn hills for three days, blah blah blah, and in general have only one major complaint:

WHERE THE FUCK WAS ALL THE DANCING.

A festival comprised mostly of music should consequently also be comprised mostly of dancing. You're out all day drinking in the streets, it's inevitable that you're going to need to dance at some point, and since blues, honky-tonk, bluegrass, gospel, Moroccan drumming and zydeco (among other things, obviously, geeze) were all to be had this weekend, it only seems logical that the festival planners allow for crowds to do anything between toe-tapping and competition-level jitterbug. HOWEVER. The dude who decided the seating was obviously an arthritic old dancing scrooge and as he grumbled to himself Friday morning, "If I can't dance, NOBODY WILLLLLLLL," packed the streets so tight with chairs that it was difficult to even navigate the aisles on the sides. AAAAAND the only two stages where they allowed for movement were so inappropriately crowded with people just standing and looking bored as shit that I couldn't do anything. One could say us dancer types were dancing constipated and the dancing Pepto Bismol was nowhere to be found in the medicine cabinet of the national folk festival 2010.

We gotta get this guy a Natural Light.

Two places I found relief were Saturday night at the Silver Dollar (you've yet to fail me, ole Dollar) where a double vodka cran made their house band sound like B.B. King, and Sunday afternoon at the main stage where a kickin but bizarrely apathetic-looking bluegrass troupe (I was under the impression that bluegrass bands were all supposed to be jacked up on Old Crow whiskey and stomping their bare feet all the time???) got even some of those previously mentioned old guys to shake their damn thang. A whomping good time was had by many, especially since there was a mystery keg (?!) like, five feet from me the whole time. Baller.

Sub-complaint:

When is our generation going to learn to dance? Am I the only 20-something in Montana who can do basic eight-count swing and waltz? Why do I always have to rely on smarmy silver-haired men in polos to fuckin twirl me around? Eff, peers! EFF!

In conclusion: Butte, I love you, but you have got to get your act together. Teach Sam and Max how to dance and how to like it, and then maybe we'll talk.