Athfest 2025

 

Athens, Georgia. Photo by me, June 2025.

We dropped into Athfest for another year this past weekend. It was Sunday afternoon at the arts and music festival that many townies see as the highlight of townie summer in Athens after the UGA students leave. We parked on the north end of campus and walked over to the scene. I am not keen on arts festivals; I have been to too many and seen the homemade crafts made with glue guns and chainsaws enough times, but I like Athfest as it has more live music than art. Though you can find plenty of crafts with tongue-wagging bulldogs stuck on them if you are inclined.

A rainbow crosswalk at College Avenue and E. Clayton Street out front of Wuxtry Records. Photo by me, June 2025.

A sparse bunch at the main stage outside the 40 Watt Club. Photo by me, June 2025.

The weather was hot and perhaps that was the reason the crowd was thin at the main stage outside the 40 Watt when we showed.

A band performs on another stage on N. Hull. Photo by me, June 2025.

The crowds. Photo by me, 2025.

Over on N. Hull Street by The World Famous, we found the crowd by another stage. Maybe they sought the shade? The mood of the people was that of not wanting to let it wind down, to keep the party going until it was a last call, beer-goggle-eyed evening that ended in a long walk of shame to Normaltown or Five Points. We did not stick around long enough to witness that.

I had heard that James Franco was in town working on a project with William H. Macy and that he had been seen in the downtown restaurants. If he was going to be in Athens on Sunday, then he might as well have been at Athfest incognito. Franco does have an Athens connection, as he directed videos for R.EM.'s That Someone Is You and Blue from the album Collapse Into Now.

The arts? Photo by me, June 2025.

So many movies and television shows are filmed in Georgia that you regularly run into them. A television show for ABC was filming recently in a park that I often walk in for exercise and I recently passed another show featuring Sylvester Stallone that was shooting in Monroe. At my last place in Atlanta, before I moved, some scenes from Hillbilly Elegy were filmed within walking distance around the corner and Stranger Things was partly shot nearby too. I am not impressed by the lights or stars, as I find the productions are often a hindrance to public spaces and roads closed to the public.

Walking through Athfest I passed a man on W. Washington Street who looked exactly like Franco and we made eye contact. He was with two other rather attractive guys who were more fashionably dressed than most. They gave off the air of not being townies even though Athens has plenty of local wannabe hipsters. I was inches from the guy for a few seconds and in that brief moment I thought it was Franco.

Later, I spotted the trio again playing hacky sack on a closed street. I wanted to snag a photo, but the guy was looking my direction as I walked by. I wanted to be more subtle about it and the opportunity passed. Was it James Franco? Maybe or maybe not.

I am pretty terrible about recognizing famous people in person. I have been a huge fan of R.E.M since the 1980s and I could walk by Michael Stipe on E. Broad Street and never realize it. Well, I did see Stipe once in Atlanta in the 1990s, but that was work related. Franco is only five years younger than I am and the more I consider it, the guy I saw looked like he was in his twenties rather than his forties, but some people do age incredibly well.

I look forward to another Athfest next year to see whom I do not meet on the street.