Colin Irvine

I have to agree with your other responders, the bluegrbutt fan base is fairly diverse. I attend Merlefest and the Hardly Strictly Bluegrbutt festivals, and the crowds there are not much different than you would expect at other music festivals (maybe slightly older on average). At Hardly Strictly you are looking at more than 50,000 people in the heart of SF, not even slightly a red state. At Merlefest they've had the openly gay Indigo Girls as one of the headliners, nobody raised a fuss.

The religion thing is a little trickier. Unlike some of your other respondents I'm on your wavelength on the religion issue as well as the political. Most of the acts are clearly sincere in the religious content of their songs, and will sometimes make onstage remarks in that vein. This doesn't bother me, and I will happily listen to Blue Highway or IIIRd Tyme Out. Some people may find this more of a problem, as I sometimes do for "conservative" political content (for example I can't handle "my country love it or leave it" type lyrics regardless of the music). I think you have to consider it to be more about you and your reaction to those type lyrics than about the culture of bluegrbutt fans. If this is a problem for you, careful reading of reviews might help you avoid artists or CDs that have a preponderance of this type of content.

Tom