North Country Fair gets a little help from the Starlite Room
For those of you missing the jovial repetition of “Happy Fair!” at what would have been the 42nd annual North Country Fair this weekend, fret not, there’s a new saying for you. Go on and try it out with your best theatrical wail: “This is not Fair!”
And that, it turns out, is the unofficial motto of this year’s pandemic non-festival, which includes a celebratory radio program on CKUA and an honest-to-gaia live festival Saturday afternoon, including a hockey-stick-length, in-person event circling Edmonton Ski Club if you’re so inclined.
“I wasn’t feeling very ambitious at all,” admits longtime artistic cat herder Laurie Iverson, “but once I started feeling the collective energy it started feeling like Fair time again,” she says with a smile.
“This is my mission, to produce something to mark the solstice in honour of the Fair.”
Over a Dick Tracy video call from the Land — North Country Fair’s wide-open forest home near Driftpile, Alberta — Iverson explains that Starlite Room co-owner Tyson Boyd, a fan of the annual Hobbit gathering, offered the high-functioning mechanism inside Starlite Sessions to get a multi-act live show broadcast online.
“Without Tyson’s offer, I probably wouldn’t have even attempted it. So they’re all doing it in the Starlite,” she explains.
The lineup (and this is probably the closest I’ve got in years to printing the whole thing) includes Scott Cook, the Carolines, Peter and the Wolves, Bill Bourne and Paul Steffes, hip-hop act Tzadeka, and two spoken word artists, Nanise and Dwennimmen. There’s even a street performer: the Great Balanzo.
“Tyson’s got all the safety regulations down,” says Iverson. “There’s even a mat over the microphone which can be cleaned to get a better flow going.
“But they do have to do a whole clean-off between acts, just Scott talking between all these little 15-minute sets.”
Which brings us to how Cook’s feeling. It’s complicated, but one of the Fair’s most frequent flyers is an agile adaptor.
“I’m gutted not to be heading up to the Land,” he notes. “I think this would’ve been my 24th Fair. It’s my New Year’s.
“So yeah, it’s a drag not to reconvene with that family this year, but I’m grateful that we get to connect in some small way, even if we aren’t sweating it out in front of the main stage, cartwheeling through the campground, or huddling under a tarp in a rainstorm wondering what it all means.”
That last point is one of the main appeals of North Country Fair, the annual finding of oneself, often entangled within old friends and new.
To keep occupied, Cook has been doing monthly Facebook concerts, including one 7 p.m. Friday. His new album and 240-page book Tangle of Souls is out July 31.
He just released the Woodie Guthrie-style Say Can You See, where he sings, “This ain’t a partisan song, it ain’t about right and left. It’s about right and wrong, we’re fighting over the scraps, while a few are living like kings — because screwing us over is a bipartisan thing.”
Back to the NCF show, starting at 1 p.m. Saturday — including a preshow by the staggeringly decent music lover Grant Stovel — the entire production will run on CKUA 94.9 FM through 4 p.m. The live concert video airs from around 1:15 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Youtube through a link on the NCF Facebook page, where you are encouraged to donate to the LSLNCCA community association.
The Fair’s welcome sign has been plucked from the woods and will be on stage, with video of past shows
I’m grateful we get to connect in some small way, even if we aren’t sweating it out in front of the main stage.
playing behind the performers during the show.
And, as noted, the Edmonton Ski Club (9613 96 Ave.) will be open for bike repairs and refreshments, broadcasting the event at the hill for anyone who wants to experience it at least a step closer to in-person, with the usual spreadem-out safety guidelines in place. Don’t make me blow my whistle!
Iverson, hilariously, will be watching the North Country Fair show — broadcast from Edmonton — up on the land near Driftpile. Wish her luck.
“Trying to use technology up here on the land almost always brings you to tears,” Iverson says with a laugh. “But I feel lucky. I’ve been given some of the Fair spirit that a lot of people aren’t getting to have because I’ve spoken to so many people just trying to make this happen. A lot of people needed to feel the love and were willing to help put something together.
“It feels so weird every way to not have people coming. I’ve been up at the Land a lot this year, just driving by all the empty campfires that won’t have all those herds of people. It still feels really surreal.
“But I have a feeling, next year, people are going to be cooped up for a long time and ready to let loose.”