I am slightly sad to be covering my final Nelsonville Music Festival, as this is a yearly adventure for me and undoubtedly the best weekend of the year. It is the weekend when Nelsonville becomes the tie-dye capital of the world, when national acts finally have the opportunity to relish in the beauty of Southeastern Ohio and when locals and students live in harmony, bonding over their shared love of music.

I, Kristin Nehls, as well as my fellow ACRN writer Erin Schroettinger (a NMF virgin) will embrace this festival with the same enthusiasm and high expectations as every year, blogging along the way to give all of you a peek into what one of the most underrated festivals on earth looks like.

Hope you enjoy... I know we will.

6:58 - Nelsonville... as good as I remember

I walk into the gate and smell the same smells, see the same beautiful backdrop of rolling hills and fully-blossomed trees, and hear the same energy from the musicians as the pumped-up tunes of Seascapes reverberate throughout the park.

We've just missed the Athens quartet, but the dancing hippies and coagulation of tie-dye that spruce up the (currently) scarcely populated park almost make up for it. I know that in less than an hour these fields will be packed with funnel-cake eating, sweat-drenched and beer-filled fans, but for now, the light breeze and calm before the storm is doing nothing if not hyping me up even more for the night that is ahead. -K.N.

7:26 - Buffalo Killers

Talk about the perfect way to ease me into a weekend-long fest. The sun sets in the backdrop of the main stage as Buffalo Killers croon their twangy souls off, providing a gentle and relaxing set that matches the fest's atmosphere of breeziness and dusk.

A train whizzes by in the background, its horn adding to the down-home feel of these bearded Cincinnatians, and reminding us (in case the surrounding company was not reminder enough) that we are, indeed, in Appalachia.

Admittedly, this set is dragging a bit. Maybe I'm just anxious for Those Darlins, but Buffalo Killers sure do know how to hold out a final song, extending their instrumental solos for almost seven minutes now. As for me? I'm just soaking it in, saving most of my energy for the rest of the night. -K.N.

8:06 - Those Darlins

From my up-close, stage-right, on-the-floor view, I see three very short black skirts; I see black frilly boots, old worn-out high tops and your run-of-the-mill black converses, all three of which are stomping - I mean stomping - to the southern punkiness that only a trifecta of Tennessee goodness could bring us.

"Ya'll ready to get wild with us?" baritone ukelele player Nikki "Darlin" asks us after a song or two, and judging by the uproarious reaction from the crowd to the girls' wailing and screaming, "wild" may be a bit of an understatement. But, wild we do indeed get.

There is always do-si-do-ing at Nelsonville, but never has it been so violent and brash and sweaty. The panting and chanting cadenced by the girls on stage is absolutely contagious, and a previously tame crowd is on its feet and sucking the energy of the entire park into one tiny back porch of a stage.

The girls' hair is getting wilder and wilder, following the pattern of their song content, which ranges from DUIs to wild lovers. Quite frankly, these girls are stealing the spotlight of Nelsonville Music Fest, and this little journalist ain't complaining. -K.N.

9:04 - Michael Hurley

The awesome thing about the No-Fi "stage"? It's a small, little, scarcely-lit cabin that offers one of the most intimate settings any concert-goer can expect to experience. The less awesome thing? It is downright tiny, meaning that all of the fans excited to see Hurley have jammed into and around the cabin, making his set ultimately impossible to hear.

We give up, promising to see him later this weekend, and instead socialize with some locals at the surrounding craft fair, eventually forking over probably too much money for the best smelling soap with which our noses have had the glory of flirting.

The music at Nelsonville is obviously the biggest draw, but ignoring the vendors who are selling their souls in the form of art would really be a shame; without the married-couple-who-met-via-hitchhiking and the nine-year-old helping Mom sell soap, Appalachia would be void of personality and Nelsonville Music Fest would not have the down-home draw that it does.

Not to mention, we can hear Detroit Cobra perfectly from here, and the serenity of crowd separation does the body good every once in awhile. -K.N.

9:35 - Givers

If there is one word to describe the atmosphere at the Nelsonville Music Festival, it is alive. With the rolling hills of the Appalachian Mountains fully clothed in green trees and an audience of all ages, the fervor of life resonates through the celebration of music.

One especially lively band is Lafayette, La.'s Givers. Shrouded in echoing vocals, jaunty guitars and auxiliary percussion, they compel an initially seated crowd to shake the dirt off their legs and dance carelessly around the back porch stage. Givers is a band that can blend elements of psychedelia with hand-clapping pop-rock to create an individual sound that truly resonates with the audience.

In addition to the infectious sound, Givers's stage presence amplifies the power of their music. With hair-flailing and foot-stomping, they provide for an all-body musical experience. Givers's steady energy provides for a perfect start to an evening of unending rock-and-roll. -E.S.

12:38 - Man Man

Never before did I think that I would fall in love with a scarcely-clothed, thickly-mustached, is-he-even-sane? man, but after Ryan Kattner's (aka Honus Honus') stage climbing, glitter spreading, ketchup spilling set... my mind may be changed.

These guys really know how to rile up a crowd, teasing us with an almost 30-minute sound check, but holy crap it is worth the wait. The quintet is dead on, whether it's their crescendo-ing into kooky keyboard solos or screwing all sensible music to hell via piano stomping and drum rapping. This is a set more hyped than I have ever seen.

Honus Honus -- attention whore that he is -- keeps hiking his cut-off shorts higher and higher, and the crowd watches longingly as sweat literally spills waterfall-style from his face. Random band members have sporadic outbursts of energy, and each are given their moment to grunt and gurgle into the mic as they let their instruments take them away.

And the finale. Oh, the finale. Large, metal bowls are placed on drums, and huge handfuls of silverware are thrown into said bowl to create a fireworks-esque explosion of silverware that serves as a makeshift form of instrumentals for the always-creative Man Man.

Their encore ends as they literally run off stage (I was serious when I said that the energy of this set is incomparable), and we all sit stupified for a moment before turning around to head home and process the madness.

Day one? You have succeeded. I have high hopes for the rest of the weekend. -K.N.