At the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance conference in November you can tell something about how important the performers are by what time of day they play. The earlier in the evening you get to perform, the more highly respected you are. The lowest run (but still darned impressive) are the guerrilla showcases, which take place from 11:45 p.m. to 3 a.m. (or thereabouts) – and even within that there’s sometimes a status ranking, with the truly great folks getting to play closer to midnight than to the truly wee hours of the morning. The next level in the hierarchy is the quads (which used to be called the tri-centrics), a set of simultaneous juried showcases that run from 9:45 to 11:30 p.m. I’ve once been selected to play in those. That’s a great time of day to play. And the highest level of prestige is to play in the formal showcase, which runs from 7 to 9:30 p.m. So at NERFA the earlier you play, the higher your status. The opposite is true of the Campfire Festival at Club Passim, which I’m absolutely thrilled to get the opportunity to play in this year, for the first time. It’s a four-day festival of music over memorial day weekend (there’s also a labor day version, and a much smaller one in the winter). There the status/time hierarchy is reversed: the better-known you are, the later in the day you get to play – the big draws play late. Not surprisingly, I’m early in the day – in fact, since the ensemble that was supposed to precede the round I’m playing in seems to have pulled out, we’re currently first on the schedule (12:45 p.m.) on Sunday, May 27th. The good news – other than having the opportunity to play this festival at all, which is beyond exciting – is that I’m much more awake at 12:45 p.m. than I am at 12:45 a.m. And all I need to do is play well and turn out the crowds (that’s where you all come in – you can either show up in person or watch on concertwindow.com) and maybe I’ll get the chance to play the festival again . . . and maybe even at a slightly later time.