Courtesy of Blue Mountain Festival

A month ago, a storm that hit the Gemini Fest site blew down trees, pulled up wiring and knocked the roof off the stage. In these photos, the stage's roof is replaced.

Blue Mountain was in a rough state only a month ago.

A storm that spawned at least one tornado had hit the Franklin County music festival site. It had knocked down trees, pulled up wiring, mangled a fence and knocked the roof off the stage.

Good thing the property's owner, Rob King, owns a construction company.

Two weeks later, the site was ready to go again, King said this week. That left plenty of time to prepare for the site's upcoming Gemini Fest.

The June 20-21 event features headliners Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad, a nationally touring, modern reggae band from Rochester, N.Y. Also on the bill are some local and regional favorites -- Sol Creech Band, the Alliens, the Seed and the Half Moon Band.

What began as a private birthday party for King's wife, Shanna, morphed into an outdoor venue for some of their friends' bands. Now, it's a business, with two festivals per year and crowds in the hundreds, organizers said.

And for Rob King, it's a way to carry on a tradition in the Snow Creek/Figsboro communities of southern Franklin and northern Henry counties.

Keeping up tradition

King, 36, grew up there, and remembers the music and pig pickin' parties his family attended when he was younger. Residents would join together to get a bluegrass or country band, a wagon for a stage, a pig cooker and themselves in a big field with plenty of shade trees.

But the folks that used to throw those parties grew old, and the fields are harder to come by. The Kings, however, have a 109-acre site with space for camping, and lots of shade trees -- minus the ones that fell in the storm on May 8.

"For me, it's really [about] picking the ball back up," King said. "It's something you don't want to see die."

Any resident in earshot of the festival's music gets a free pass. And that includes neighbors who came to those old community parties, King said.

"It's two times a year when you'll probably see most all your neighbors," he said of Gemini Fest and the Blue Mountain Festival in the fall. "And the neighbors are very supportive of what we're doing."

Along the way, the Kings and their circle of musical friends are making even more friends. Last year, at least 400 people came to Gemini Fest, festival spokesman Berkeley Dent said. Organizers have printed 500 tickets for this year.

"We want to be able to bring the best to our community," Shanna King said. "We want to be able to offer unique opportunities to listen to bands. There is so much great music in the Blue Ridge Mountains and beyond. Blue Mountain is a great place to highlight it."

The perfect place

The idea for music festivals at Blue Mountain started with three music-loving dreamers, one of whom, Shay Francisco, is Shanna King's brother.

Francisco and two of his local friends, Dent and Adam Beason, were trying to think of ways to create an outdoor showcase for bands they were in or bands they knew, Beason said. One day in early summer 2003, they were hanging out at the Blue Mountain property when it hit them.

"We were standing right about where the stage is now, saying, 'This is the perfect place,' " recalled Beason, whose Half Moon band has played every Gemini Fest.

They went to Francisco's sister and brother-in-law. Shanna King is a Gemini, and liked the idea of calling it the Gemini Fest, "for everyone who is a Gemini or who loves one," she said. Her birthday is June 8, and the Kings had been camping with friends and family at the site for about the previous five Junes.

"When they asked about the idea to have friends out and play a festival-like show ... it was just a really natural fit" to add a bunch of bands, King said. "And it's really grown exponentially in the most positive manner.

"We've been pleased with all the people we've been able to meet at the Blue Mountain festivals."

It started out as a private party. The first year, Francisco, Dent and Beason put together a makeshift stage that led to musicians tripping and dropping their gear, Beason said. The next year, the three built a stage, getting themselves into poison ivy along the way. But they got it built, with "a lot of tequila, a lot of Bud Light and whoever we could bring up there to help," Beason said.

By the third year, Rob King was enthusiastic enough about what was happening to solidify the stage, Beason said. And he started sinking money into site maintenance, festival production, radio and print advertising.

Last year, the show went public, with Half Moon and the Seed among the acts onstage. The bluegrass festival followed, featuring The Lost and Found, the Locust Mountain Boys and others.

"From an artist's perspective, Berkeley and The Blue Mountain staff and production team are great to work with and make every effort to ensure the artists feel at home," said The Seed's singer/guitarist, Gabe Lewis. "The Gemini Festival brings the fun of FloydFest on a smaller scale, and hopefully in the future, Blue Mountain will grow as FloydFest has."

Recently, the Franklin County government issued Blue Mountain a $1,000 tourism initiative grant, which festival organizers are using to market the shows.

King said he doesn't expect to make a profit from the festivals. He and his friends aren't crazy about the red tape involved with issues such as permits, insurance and security. He just hopes the festival pays for itself eventually, and maybe gets some corporate sponsorship.

"The money is not the driving force in all this," he said. "If that was the driving force, we wouldn't be in this business. ... We are in it for the long haul. We're going to do what we have to to see production go forth for years to come."