Punk legend Bergmann joins Folk Festival lineup
Let enough time pass, and all forms of music eventually get classified as folk. Vancouver punk-rock legend Art Bergmann gracing the 2018 Vancouver Folk Music Festival lineup isn’t surprising at all.
Punk rock is so old now that many of the original artists who survived the scene are even reaching great-grandparent status.
Folk music is typically defined by singer/songwriter artists who write with a serious focus on lyrics and storytelling. Bergmann is certainly a brilliant poet and knows his way around a killer hook as well.
He’s joined by the usual superstars-to-utter-unknown-waitingto-be-discovered roster that has
made the annual festival such a big draw for music lovers. The list of artists whose careers broke out after appearing on one of the workshop stages at Jericho Beach is too long to print. This year will just add more names to the list.
You don’t get to have the website thefestival.bc.ca without earning it.
Neko Case, Ry Cooder, recent Juno-award-winning roots act from Saskatchewan The Dead South and Indigenous trip-hop artist Iskwé had all been announced previously. You can add such luminaries as multiple Grammy-award-winning Latin-music star Alex Cuba, the avant-Egyptian stylings of Gordon Grdina’s Haram and chiming harmony pop of Massachusetts quartet Darlingside to the lineup now.
As ever, there is something to appeal to almost any taste. Particularly strong this year is the number of Latin artists on the bill. These groups have historically torn the park up with high-energy dance parties.
A shortlist of other notables includes Wallis Bird (Ireland), DakhaBrakha (Ukraine), Kacy & Clayton (Saskatchewan), Dawn Pemberton (B.C.), Carole Pope (Ontario) and Son de Madera (Mexico). For the full lineup, visit thefestival.bc.ca.