[mplpost] Sunday at the Winnipeg Folk Festival

[Tony Dalmyn]

Hot and humid.  Temperatures at 32 or 33.  Wispy clouds.  The first couple
of hours were tough - hot, sunny still.  A wind from the southeast came up
around 1:30 and provided some relief.  It felt cool, although I suppose it
was not that cool.

I tried an umbrella.  Works to keep the sun off - feel how hot the fabric
gets, but with a breeze and some water on a bandanna, could sit out anywhere
and watch what I wanted.  The site has windbreak type screens of trees but
few shade trees.  They probably won't grow here.  Would tents help?
Problems with sound and space and site lines and set up.  Remember the
umbrella.

Fortunately for everyone, the temperatures stayed there and did not rise
further.  Today it was 35 in Winnipeg and the breeze was hot too.

Started the day with Kiran Ahluwalia and Punjabi folk songs at Stage 3.
Still impressed.  Nice explanations of the songs, good voice, artistry,
exhuberantly gifted sidemen.  A winner in any language.

I went to stage four and listened to Scott Nolan - a local bluesman, and a
youngster with some experience beyond his years.  Then I sat at the
mainstage - under my umbrella and had an intermittent siesta, listening to
snatches of music from the Shady Grove and Stage four, drifting out.  Stage
four was a Cuban concert with Habana Sax and some performers from the
Bunnett tour.  That was a lot of fun.  I had to revise my thinking about the
Bunnett group.  Their workshop was much more interesting than the studio
jazz they played on the main stage.  Very real, rooted songs.  Also had to
take back some of my nasty thoughts about Kristi Stassinopoulou's electro
techno band.  One of her side men was playing a bouzouki and jamming with
the Cuban musicians.  Two of the members of Horace X filled out the set.

I heard snatches of Bill Garrett and Sue Lothtrop who were in the Shady
Grove- but not enough to comment.  My wife was there and said they came out
and looked around what appeared to be an empty venue!!  As they looked
around, they realized that dozens, perhaps a couple of hundred people were
all sitting in the bushes, sometimes 10 or 15 feet deep, in the bits of
shade.  The Grove must have been hell on the stage crew and performers - it
had no breeze and damn little shade.  Jan liked the music.  Bill and Sue do
well as a duo.

I spent the rest of the day at Stage Two.  First I watched the Silk and
Steel ensemble - a group that invented itself at the WFF in 2000.  Liu Feng
is a pipa player.  Julian Kystasy plays the bandura - the Ukranian dulcimer.
Subhasis Bhattarcharjee plays the tabla and Dehashish Bhattarcharjee plays
classical Indian guitars.  They rotate songs and play individually, and they
play arrangements of songs from one tradition with the others adding in.  A
fascinating and compelling experiment.  The workshop times are staggered
now, and when the Richie Havens/Ian Tyson/Toshi Reagan workshop at stage one
broke up and people walked by, heads turned and people were just pulled in
to something they never looked for.  Julian Kystasy made a very moving
introduction to one song.  He introduced one of his instruments - a
historical bandura, used by the singers of ancient traditional ballads, and
song from that tradition about the struggle between truth and falsehood.  A
song about timeless themes.  A song about truth.  A song that moves him to
do what he does.

Then a workshop called Acadie to Angleterre.  Hazel Fairburn from Horace Z,
Chopper (cello) and "Al" from the Oysterband (which one - host Lennie
Gallant didn't know).  And Lennie Gallant and his whole band.  Hazel
Fairburn proved adept at trad fiddle tunes.  The fact that Horace X plays a
different brand of music as a full band does not mean that she can't fiddle
"in the kitchen".  Lennie Gallant earned admiration and annoyance.  He was
playing on borrowed guitars, with his own stuff lost by the airlines.  he is
hardworking.  He has a good band - competent and versatile musicians.  He is
big hearted and enthusiatic.  I liked his early work.  His newer big concept
songs work to a point, and they might mean a ticket to fame and fortune.  He
is really ambitious and trying hard.  The annoyance factor today was that he
can be a big stage hog.  The Oyster men used one of their turns to involve
everyone in a wild, ironic, folk flavoured version of Rocking in the Free
Work.  Everyone knew the song.  Everyone played.  The audience knew the
chorus.  It was a golden moment.  Then Lennie took his turn to get the
Oysters to back him on that Titanic song, and invited the audience to do
that kazoo thing.  Give it a rest.  Learn from the Oysters.  Sometimes it's
just not about exposing the song.

At some point I was crossing a field and was interrupted by a procession of
children parading around the site following two of the strangest pied
pipers.  Al Simmons in a clown suit on a bike and Rory McLeod on his
trombone.

The mainstage was one of the best ever.  No qualifications.  The weather
helped a bit.  The temperature dropped and a steady breeze cooled things
down.

The announcements have been cut back.  No more meet me at the whale tail.
No specific lost kids - just reminders to check security.

The new announcement this year had to do with tarps and stones.  Seems that
some people don't bring tent stakes.  Tradition is to improvise with twigs
and branches.  This year innovative chimps took rocks from the drainage
ditches.  Big burden for volunteers to cart those back to the ditch and
plays hell with the lawnmowers if you leave those lying around.  Not to
mention that this rock has a purpose, to define the ditches and keep the
ditches from collapsing into little sandy swales.  Big request to put rocks
back.  Or bring 4 or 6 25 cent tent pegs.

Opening act was Toshi Reagon.  How to describe her?  Great voice, a
political outlook from her mother, one of the founding members of Sweet
Honey in the Rock - an alternative and radical perspective - but founded in
the preaching of a gospel tradition.  A young person's sensibilities and
anger.  Reggae influences in her music.  Well received.

Oscar Lopez was next.  Can't say enough about his playing.  He was joined
for a couple of songs by James Keelaghan for Compadres tunes, but it
remained very much his own set.  Dancers who tried to dance to the beat
exploded.

Richie Havens blew the crowd away.  He has a very focussed way of playing
and singing.  His songs stand the test of time, and he sings with an
effortless grace.  The overall effect is listening to an oracle or an old
voice of wisdom.

Nick Lowe sang soft ballads.  I saw some people crying as he sang his own
pop standards as folk songs.

Intermission with the raffle draw, and some awards.  Award to the Free
Press - nice gesture to reward years of pretty supportive journalism.  And a
special award to Peter Paul Van Camp.

The last act was the Oysterband.  I had tried to see them at Canmore last
year and was defeated by Alberta Hydro.  I haven't seen them in a full main
concert for 10 years.  They are superb.  Apart from being a programmers
dream - they play happily at workshops, they do a great show.  Driving
rhythms, power arrangements with percussion and cello.  Prosser lyrics.
Telfer's big bowing on his fiddle.  John Jones up front on the vocals.  Song
after song, one leading to the next.  Lyrics with meaning.

Audience loved it.  Knew they had seen something that will not happen the
same way ever again.  Live music, under the night sky, with 10,000 friends
dancing and clapping.

In the course of the evening, several tweeners came up.  Martyn Joseph came
up.  They had Jonell Mosser come up.  I missed her through the festival.
They had Ruthie Foster come up and she was great.  Silk and Steel were up
and I already mentioned their workshop, so I was happy to see them again.

Farewells to and from Festival Board and staff.  Interesting when the
president of the board refers to the business manager of the Festival as the
heart and soul of the festival.  I know they wanted to prove that
(charismatic) AD's like Pierre Guerin come and go, while the Festival
endures but this is taking the branding of the festival to an extreme.  The
paid staff do a great job, and they deserve credit for their efforts but the
heart and soul are the performers and fans and the amazing volunteers.  The
staff are the skeleton, vital, sustaining but the soul?

The finale was the usual mixture of maudlin and sublime sentiments about the
festival vibe and how the performers loved Winnipeg with mass confusion.

The finale gets a mixed review.  The performers don't always know the songs,
and they don't get asked until late Sunday.  Oysters lead through Wild
Mountain Thyme ok.  Lennie Gallant and Winnipeg's Wailin Jennies were
supposed to lead the Mary Ellen Carter.  I don't know if they knew the
words.  Sam Baardman was standing with them.  The lights went out at some
point and there was confusion.  Gallant seemed to lose track of where the
choruses are - which is a tricky thing with the Mary Ellen Carter or was
thrown by the confusion when the lights went off and came back on.  Ruthie
Foster did a great first verse of Amazing Grace but I wonder if she was
upstaging the rest of the participants in last song of the last "act".  No
prizes for best finale.  Just take the honour and return the respect.

People folded their tarps, and walked back to campground or cars.  A few
people sang Swing low Sweet Chariot.  This inspired my son - no respecter of
the moment - to try do something by Nickleback.  Nickleback doesn't sound
great without the power chords.  Or with them.

Checking today's paper.  No one got really sick of the heat, although some
one got sick of bee sting allergy.  No visible rowdys.  I saw security
handle one drunk nicely and without calling the cops.  Saw a bunch of RCMP
cars Saturday and today's news confirmed there was a hallucigen trafficking
arrest in the campground.  No other bad news.  Everyone got home safe.


Tony Dalmyn
Winnipeg


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