SUN SHINES ON FOLK FESTIVAL
Attendance strong after slow start
In the end, the sunshine brought them in.
Which must have been a relief. There was mild concern that ticket sales for the Calgary Folk Music Festival weren’t moving quite as briskly as anticipated in the past few weeks. But, in the end, Calgarians rallied. While the unofficial 2017 tally did not indicate a complete sellout, the numbers were more than respectable. Saturday saw Prince’s Island at capacity with 13,000 people. Thursday was a thousand short of that. Friday night had only 100 tickets left over and there was a dwindling number left by mid-afternoon Sunday as the festival came to a close.
“It really picked up the last couple of weeks,” says artistic director Kerry Clarke. “It was solid, but it was just not as quick as we thought it would be, especially given the marquee acts we had. It’s just I think people are last minute.”
The marquee names this year included headliners Billy Bragg and Joe Henry on Thursday; City and Colour on Friday; the Barenaked Ladies, who made their festival debut on Saturday; and Blue Rodeo on Sunday.
But, as always, there were also a number of artists punching above their weight further down the marquee.
“Baracutanga were a very lastminute booking,” says Clarke. “They really brought it. They did everything I could have wanted them to do, both for the party and the mainstage. Just the right attitude. Tanya Tagaq, I always know she is amazing, but that was really wild. Holy F*ck were off the charts. I love looking out and seeing 3,000 people standing and enjoying it and grooving … even if they blow out all our speakers.”
Speaker blowouts were not expected to be an issue Sunday night, with reliable stalwarts Blue Rodeo scheduled to wrap things up at Prince’s Island Park for a typically tuneful but mellow Sunday night.
Those looking for folk authenticity couldn’t have done better than Massachusetts’ Darlingside, who sound like Simon & Garfunkel with a sense of humour. They kicked off the mainstage festivities with a charmingly low-key set, with the band crowded around one mike for sparkling four-part harmonies backed by mostly acoustic instruments. For such a modest setup, the band hit more than a few soaring peaks with originals such as The Ancestor, Fourth of July, White Horses and a surprisingly effective take on the Smashing Pumpkins’ 1979.
As with Darlingside, there was not a lot of variety in Yola Carter’s set. But her perceptive reading of roots and deep, expressive vocals set apart this big-voiced U.K. artist. Also backed by strings, Carter showcased those impressive pipes on a number of gospel-fused country tunes from her debut EP Orphan Offering. The newer material, including a country-soul stunner called It Ain’t Easier, suggests she will be immersing herself in more traditional strains on her upcoming full-length debut.
Big voices and sparse backing was clearly a theme Sunday, with Irish singer-songwriter Foy Vance beginning his solo set by pounding away on an electric piano and bellowing the first four numbers with his vocal volume set firmly on 10. His voice is certainly as big as Carter’s, although at the start was lacking in similar nuance. Still, once Vance dialed it back a bit on acoustic-guitar blues numbers such as Casanova, You and I, and Moonshine, his skills as a songwriter and consummate showman — greatly helped by a self-deprecating sense of humour — shone through and the audience began to sing along. All of which was nicely preparing the crowd for Blue Rodeo.
Earlier on, the vibe was occasionally loud but also appropriately reverent for a Sunday morning. The annual churchy workshop, this year dubbed Lay Your Burden Down, found Jerron (Blind Boy) Paxton and Meredith Axelrod offering a variation of Precious Bryant’s uplifting Morning Train; Rev. Robert Jones covered Rev. Gary Davis’s I Heard the Angel Singing; The McCrary Sisters repeated Saturday’s soul-boosting version of Amazing Grace; and Dione Taylor and the Backsliderz had the sleepy morning crowd on their feet and testifying with a joyous run through the foot-stomping original, Spirit.
Sunday also provided a platform for a number of stellar, upand-coming female songwriters. That included Toronto’s Charlotte Cornfield, whose excellent sophomore release Future Snowbird translated nicely to the stage, particularly the standouts Mercury, Time Bomb, and Big Volcano, Small Town. There were also showcases for Lindi Ortega, a Toronto native who recently moved from Nashville to Calgary; and Whitney Rose, a Canadian songwriter who recently moved to Nashville.
Ortega offered a typically strong set of originals and ended with a particularly sultry run through Ring of Fire. Rose played salty originals such as My First Rodeo, Lasso, and Chivalry is Dead, and a stellar run through Lucinda Williams’ Change the Locks.
Hearing Marvin Etzioni of L.A.’s Thee Holy Brothers sing the gorgeous hymn-like You Are the Light, which he wrote back in the 1980s for his pioneering country-rock outfit Lone Justice, was one of the more rewarding treats of the festival; as was the mesmerizing grooves and guitar playing of FARIS, a North African musician who offered a moody, hypnotic set that mixes growling blues with Touareg traditions.
Multicultural, moody, mellow, occasionally intense … what more could you ask for on a Sunday at the folk fest?