Music festivals ain’t what they used to be. Nearly a decade on from the bursting of the festival bubble, a few of the world’s grand-scale mega-fests continue to program incredible experiences. Barcelona’s Primavera Sound, which the Stereogum staff attended together this month, is very much among them. But financially, it’s getting harder to pull off a quality fest at scale. It’s why Pitchfork Music Festival, one of the best events of its kind, ceased to exist this year. The big ones that persist are mostly bleak. A quick survey of the posters for the biggest corporate fests in North America — stuff like Lollapalooza and its distant relatives Osheaga, Boston Calling, and Governors Ball — offers personality-devoid walls of text appealing to a common denominator so low it may actually be in the earth’s core. For people who actually care about music, large swaths of the festival scene are cooked.

The way forward, as has been obvious for a while now, is smaller, more carefully curated fests — sustainable events with real personality. Nelsonville Music Festival is one of the best of them. Since 2006, when Tim Peacock booked some bands to play on the street outside Stuart’s Opera House as a fundraiser for the historic Southeastern Ohio theater, NMF has been an outgrowth of the thriving creative community that surrounds the venue and the region. The fest has since expanded to a bustling-but-manageable 6,000 capacity, moved several times, and survived a pandemic that wiped out many similar events. Along the way it has maintained a familiar but unique approach to booking, an NPR-ish blend of rising and established underground rock and Americana acts rounded out by a healthy smattering of locally rooted talent.

Beyond the music — which this year included headliners Waxahatchee, Charley Crockett, and Taj Mahal plus MJ Lenderman, Dehd, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, the Bug Club, Rosali, Watchhouse, Esther Rose, the War And Treaty, Being Dead, Charlie Parr, Jerry David DeCicca, Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band, Merce Lemon, and the great rising Columbus bands Golomb and DANA among many others — Nelsonville is simply a good scene. It’s relatively affordable, you can camp directly adjacent to the festival site if you want, and they are chill about letting you bring in your own water bottle — a must when the heat index is hovering near 100 as it was for much of this past weekend. It’s even better for locals. As someone who has lived in Ohio for my whole life, who resides up the road in Columbus and went to college in nearby Athens, the a visit to Snow Fork Events Center for NMF is not just a chance to see lots of great music; it’s a chance to run into lots of people I don’t see enough anymore.

This year I made the 75-minute drive down from Columbus for Friday and Sunday’s festivities. I missed a lot of amazing artists on Saturday, but the sets I did catch reminded me what a treasure this event has always been. MJ Lenderman and Waxahatchee are two of my favorite bands going right now, so watching them play back to back on the main stage, each of them guesting during each other’s sets, was a thrill. It was especially lovely that I could walk directly to the front of the stage a few minutes before Lenderman went on, and not because of a paltry crowd; Nelsonville is just chill like that. Elsewhere, fragments of Merce Lemon, Rosali, and the Bug Club’s performances showed off each artist’s special sauce, and an ultra-fun late-night set from Dehd finally cracked that band’s lysergic garage rock open for me after years of not buying the hype.

Upon my return Sunday, I was excited to check in with Golomb, whose imminent LP The Beat Goes On is one of the best things I’ve heard this year, and the trio’s harmonious yet cacophonous rock ‘n’ roll was a perfect match for the sweltering conditions. Earlier in the afternoon, Ryan Davis, backed by the Styrofoam Winos (who might as well have been the NMF house band this year), offered ample reason to be excited for his forthcoming New Threats From The Soul. Jerry David DeCicca, a former Columbus mainstay now based in Texas, smartly accented his distinctive alt-country croak with tuneful vocals from his partner Eve Searles and pedal steel from longtime collaborator Sven Kahns; it was a pleasure to see him perform again after many years. (I also appreciated that he got children to throw his What Would Jerry David DeCicca Do apparel into the crowd because the festival refused to provide him with a T-shirt cannon.) As for Charlie Parr — well, not many solo performers are that magnetic. I came in knowing nothing about him and left a fan for life.

DeCicca and Parr’s sets took place at the Creekside Stage, a special area tucked away in the woods, where a mix of solo and full-band performances are recorded for video sessions by students from nearby Ohio University. Creekside was also the site of the weekend’s grand finale, a tribute to the late, great Michael Hurley hosted by his fellow folk freak Will Oldham. Hurley, who died this year at age 83, was something like the patron saint of Nelsonville Music Festival. He was the first artist NMF founder Tim Peacock ever booked (at the great Athens co-op bar and restaurant Casa Nueva) way back in 1999, and he performed annually at the festival, lending a bit of his own quirky essence to the proceedings.

This year the Creekside Stage was decorated with large versions of Hurley’s cartoon artwork and labeled “Snock’s Tavern,” a reference to the singer-songwriter’s nickname. Sunday evening, a parade of artists including the Winos, Jolie Holland, Spencer Radcliffe, Tara Jane O’Neil, Jordan Smart, and more offered heartfelt readings of Hurley’s sidelong wisdom. Surrounded by trees, hammocks, and listeners seated on a hillside, the performances took on the feeling of a celebratory wake. It was a beautiful way to close out a weekend that was as much a community gathering as a top-flight music festival.