Singing and Dancing in the Rain at the Calgary Folk Festival

Day 3 at the Calgary Folk Festival was simply glorious, even in the evening rain.

In the afternoon I wandered from stage to stage catching bits of workshops. There were so many enticing ones, all going on at once, that I opted for the "walk-by-listening" route today. Encountered a group from Albuquerque New Mexico who were playing the traditional folk morbid songs with a dashing style; then met a group now, more or less, based in Budapest, who grew up in Albuquerque who were totally into the sounds of the Roma. Gotta love it!

Gotta love the CD tent too, which just happens to be situated at the nexus of the place. Fortunately the nuisance of the mandatory bag check meant there were a few more walk-pasts than walk-ins.

What you have to hate is tonight's MC. In the long tradition of finding the most inappropriate person to host the mainstage, tonight's MC certainly takes second place as the worst. The potty mouthed 'comedian' from a few years ago still holds first place. This young lady tonight spouted so many inanely stupid things that I was completely happy not to be able to hear most of her blathering. Fortunately no one has trained her in diction and the use of a microphone, so much of what she was struggling to utter was lost. Think Valley Girl trying to kick the stupid habit by attending the college campus cafeteria and listening to the real students gossip about their professors. Honey, your stupid isn't a habit, it is hard-wired.

Well that is off my chest!

Toward the end of the last workshop I have stopped at (The Handsome Family from Albuquerque NM) it starts raining lightly (more of a drip than a rain). I am targeted to do a festival survey. The Handsome Family advise us that the safest thing to do in a rainstorm is to gather around a morbid folk song, and that makes complete sense to me. So it is confirmed that the sensory overload is beginning. The survey taker is trying to keep up with my response to the question: "Which acts did you come to the festival to hear; it is a long list. Then the opening act starts up on the mainstage. Their sound immediately captures my full attention. The survey taker agrees with me that the band is very, very good (they are only about 16 bars into the first song) and I check the program to see who it is - Josh Ritter, who was on my list. With a laugh, the survey taker releases me and I am off like patriot missile.

There is only one thing to do when Josh Ritter is playing - get up and dance. His music is completely infectious. His lyrics are collections of intense images, almost sound bites in their brevity with a whack of chords supporting them in the air. When he does a ballad you simply fall into it, float and dream - kind of like luxuriating in a hot tub with a significant other after making love. He is beaming with happiness from the stage, adding energy to an already enthusiastic crowd. He tells us he will be back very soon. I will be there. His CDs sold out but I will find one.

In the interlude, some legitimate comic relief. John (I learn his name later in this story, but we will start using it now for convenience) has spent a little too much time in the hot afternoon sun in the beer garden consuming beer and some other recreational substance. After wandering around the beer garden holding aloft a large branch providing the safety of shade to the assembled crowd (his concept, not mine), he decides to bring it to the river bank near where I sit and toss it in the river. He follows it into the river. He has drawn a crowd (there is something about a man stumbling in circles with a tree branch the size of a Christmas tree who is heading for the river chanting: "I love life," that attracts attention, including security). As he crawls out of the river, security tell John to sit down while they explain to him that he is finished. They know his name because this is incident number two for the day. John has enough sense to know that they are asking him to wait by the river because he is going to be offered a free ride to the drying out chamber run by the Calgary Police Service. So he generously tells his main squeeze for the day that she can stay for the show, but that he is out of here. He then proceeds to walk, fall, swim across the river (more of a moat on this side fortunately for him). Halfway across he realizes his cell phone is in the pocket of his pants, pulls it out and brandishes it at the watching security, now joined by the police. He is really angry that the !@@**%%^^###'s have caused him to ruin his new iPhone. He finally reaches the other side, climbs up the bank, like a crab on cocaine. Then, to prove to us all that he is ok to drive his car home, he does a series of quite accomplished back flips. The police are not convinced. Nor was I. But we all, except for John, had a good laugh. Shakespeare could not have written a better scene.

Back to the music. The Duhks (pronounced 'ducks;' I love the sense of humour in the spelling) have finished setting up. A group of young musicians from Winnipeg who are into exploring what one can do with the pure acoustic sound. It turns out that when you really know and love acoustic instruments and study all the earth based folk genre, you can make pure magic in the air. The zydeco piece had me dancing again. The Celtic pieces had me dancing again. All this set is what they worked up for their new CD which is due out in mid August. I breath a sigh of relief; I will buy it, but I am spared another visit to the CD tent today. They then announce that advance copies of the CD had been delivered to the site today and that it is available at the CD tent. Oh my. . . .

The first 'tweener' act is an ensemble that consists of Maryem Toller and a group of musicians that got off a plane from Egypt two days ago. They open with a violin solo that immediately transports me to Egypt, a city plaza, a restaurant patio, after dinner with the music from the house musicians melding with the night air - I pick Alexandria, because in my imagination it is a more magical place than Cairo. In the next few songs Maryem sings and she has one of the most beautiful, pure, voices that I have ever heard. It is the voice of an Opera alto soprano, without the mannerisms. The North African Arabic music tradition on display is reflecting that the musicians in this tradition evolved while observing all the human traffic generated by living in the cradle of civilization and then one of the crossroads of the world for the last 6,000 years. Yep, the Folk Festival tarps are magic carpets again. I thank the earth goddess that one of the concert promoters on site may have booked her for a return this winter. The question becomes: CD, ticket this winter, or both?

A Hawk and a Hacksaw are next. This is a husband and wife team plus a few equally as good musicians whose musical journey starts in Albuquerque NM, moves to central Europe, and now work out of Hungary and New Mexico. They give us the music of the Roma, which of course reflects the earth music of all of Europe. It is engaging, but does not hold me. So I wander off toward the CD tent to pick up my advance copy of the Duhks CD. Next to the CD tent is the alternate stage where superior acts that can not be fit into the mainstage schedule are offered a venue in the early evening. Playing are 'Los Straightjackets' a band from California that perform covers of great rocking blues standards while wearing tuxedos and Mexican lucia libre wrestling masks. I am really thinking that I have stumbled into the cafe in Star Wars when the drummer launches one of the finest drum solos that I have ever heard live. If I were not dancing, she would have had me riveted to the spot.

Back to the mainstage where James Blood Ulmer is on. Another blues master displaying all the talent that 40 years of observing life, writing songs to fit and then performing them can achieve. He is responding to the crowd and wants to play all night. I really hope that he is booked back into Calgary so he can do just that.

Sam Baker is the next 'tweener' and is coming off a world class workshop where he and Sonny Landreth just wowed everyone with their jamming. If you know what Ian Tyson did in creating an original Alberta country-folk sound (Four Strong Winds is just one of the standards), that is what this guy has been doing in Texas for at least a generation. There is nothing finer than a troubadour in full song.

Next up are a UK group: The Men They Couldn't Hang. They proceed to lay down a set of rocking folk originals. We brought this music with us when the boats sailed from England in the 17th and 18th centuries to settle North America. You could drop into any Saturday Night kitchen party in Newfoundland right now and hear virtually the same music. I say as much to the young guy who has joined me on the bench beside the river. It turns out he is from Newfoundland; is here in Calgary studying music; and his class has just finished studying the song the band is now playing (a semi rebellious song about the injustice of being forced into the British army to die fighting Napoleon) and he reminds me that we have this same song in our core of folk: The Cowboy's Lament. As the band switches to Celtic, he tells me about the subtle differences between Irish and Scottish Celtic sound, and reminds me that the whole Celtic thing was originally imported from France (or whatever it was really called before the Romans named it Gaul). It is a little bit hard to follow the conversation as I am dancing again. The band announce that they have been booked back into Calgary. It is going to be a great winter season of concerts!

While the stage hand volunteers are setting up for Blue Rodeo we get Mark Erelli. I immediately think - I have heard this guy before. But I have not. I heard his predecessors back in the 60's when we were fueling the Vietnam War protests with music. The neurons are flashing and I am young again. Definitely a CD is in order as he has updated the sound to today's needs for protest. I can live in two time frames at once with his music. Michael Franti has a great song - Yellfire, which opens with the line: "Revolution has no warnings." It doesn't for those with closed hearts. The rest of us can hear its approach.

Blue Rodeo is up and does what Blue Rodeo does. I love the band. However there is very little special about the set beyond a couple of jamming moments. If I wanted to hear the studio tracks, I would be home, dry, sitting down and listening to the CD. Tonight, I want to be enticed to dance in the rain which has started to fall again.

I am so pumped for Sunday. No "walk-by listening" at the workshops. I have picked the ones featuring the musicians whose work I want to seal in my mind before the complete sensory overload occurs. And I will find a way to stay to hear Ani Difranco close the festival!

I will, I will !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!