One wouldn't expect to find a hip hop band at a bluegrass festival, but that's exactly what audiences got at the 31st annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival when Michael Franti and Spearhead took the mountain stage for what was unquestionably the weekend's most riotous set.

A top-notch band fronted by a charismatic, dreadlocked vocalist that pumps out a jubilant mix of reggae, R&B, hip hop, jazz and rock, Spearhead was no doubt booked to appeal to a younger audience critical to the festival's future. Playing a late-night Saturday set (which is mostly a young crowd anyway, since the temperature drops 30 degrees once the sun goes down and older folks scurry for their condos), no one seemed to mind the incongruity. Franti's positive, politically charged set was a mass feelgood rally, with a sea of arms moving in frantic pace with the music. Had you dropped in from the sky without knowing anything about Telluride, you'd think you were at an urban hip hop festival.

Situated deep in the snowcapped Colorado Rockies, this region's most established and successful music festival also boasted on-fire Celtic fiddlers, mediocre Russian folk-pop musicians, uplifting gospel legends, old psychedelic rockers and the obligatory passel of tie-dyed jam bands.

Yet organizers did not abandon the country and bluegrass that still comprises the festival's core. Just a few hours before Spearhead took the stage, the Del McCoury Band played to a near-capacity crowd of 10,000 adoring fans, tearing into its vast repertoire of both traditional bluegrass tunes and pop songs that, in the band's hands, SOUND like decades-old songs. Completely unplugged and gathered old-style in a circle around two microphones the airtight quintet was the best of a handful of traditional bluegrass bands that played this year.

The festival was also heavy on Texas music, with strong sets by Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle & the Bluegrass Dukes, and an acoustic songwriter showcase featuring Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, Joe Ely, Guy Clark and Emmylou Harris together on one stage. They took turns singing and playing their own and each other's songs.

The most popular artist among the assembled singer-songwriter royalty was the leather jacketed Lovett, whose playing was clean and understated. His gorgeous cover of Clark's "Step Inside This House" was a quiet showstopper. Playing the joker to Lovett's straight man, Hiatt was the artist most relied on for guitar leads. In keeping with the thrown-together nature of the set, they were often sloppy, sometimes hilariously over-the-top, and always good natured.

It was a little sad to watch the most accomplished songwriter of the bunch, Guy Clark, because his guitar playing has diminished so much in recent years. Even so, Clark-penned classics like "The Cape" and "L.A. Freeway" drew appreciative cheers. Clark was clearly having a great time hanging out with his old friends, even walking across the stage to sing with each of them during the loose, rousing encore rendition of "This Land Is Your Land."

Given the times, it's not surprising that Telluride was a rather politically charged this year, with anti-Bush sentiments rolling off the stage in steady waves. Hiatt wanted to know, in a made-up verse he added to Woody Guthrie's famous anthem, whether this land is still made for you and me. Good question, the crowd seemed to answer, with what might have been the loudest roar of the weekend.

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