Wandering Soul at the Calgary Folk Music Festival

Day 3 and the perfect weather continues. I am very happy that shade is plentiful at most of the workshop stages. We are going to need it.

Start the day with some tacos and head for the Trophy Scribes workshop. What wonderful sedition is on offer from masterful musicians. Love everybody, but become entranced by the Tom Fun Orchestra. Decide to catch up with them at the Twilight Stage tonight.

Next, go check out the Steve Dawson concert. Can't decide if I like his own tunes or the covers better. Both are presented with a rich voice and wonderfully accomplished playing.

Caught a bit of Dick Gaughan - and remember how much I like politics mixed with art. As he says, what an agitator can say in one sentence, it takes a song nine verses!

Grab a cider with cranberry at the Beer Garden. Totally refreshing, but feel it going straight to my head so stop at one and head out. Am going to try Dry Branch Squad. I feel I must give Bluegrass a chance. These guys are superior, and I could see myself sitting a while. However there are still cringes around the edges of the hearing. So I opt for Deep Dark Woods. Totally rewarded by encountering this band. Perhaps volunteering briefly at the Drop In Center last winter has given me a new respect and sense of urgency for songs about human encounters that produce roadkill. There is a sense of yearning in the songs and music - is it hope, or just plain determination? They are great, so the listening required to answer that question will be wonderful.

Now I am totally hooped. The Yonge and Restless workshop has the power line up. I decided yesterday evening that I really wanted to see the Mark Berube & the Patriotic Few concert. Mark Berube and the Patriotic Few win and I am glad. I love the Mr. Berube's voice. It is an agile and sweet instrument. I love the cabaret style songs and arrangements. I totally love the imagery in the songs that suggest rather than preach. I totally get it. I am so looking forward to the concert here in the Fall.

Back to the beer tent where I get two rewards. Test out the new lime beer from the sponsoring brewery and it is wonderful on this hot summer afternoon. And the Yonge and Restless workshop is still going. Justin Rutledge is singing a powerful tune about desiring to be in the heart of the river, and he asks us to join in and sing it to the towers looming out of downtown. Sarah Harmer gives us a tune that says "stay tuned" for tonight's mainstage set. Steven Page shows a sense of humour. The Good Lovlies display their syncopating harmonies. What a workshop this must have been.

Next will be Phil Wiggins and Corey Harris. However on my way to the workshop site Ferron's magnificent voice calls out to me as a pass by and I am tempted. Then seconds later as I pass the . . .'til I Cried workshop, another magnificent voice is calling out to me. However, I am on a mission and find a place at the Phil Wiggins & Corey Harris concert. Am I ever glad I did. These guys give a master class in Piedmont Blues. Somewhere in my brain is the phrase "calling out the blues." That concept has always kind of made sense given the lyrical and chord structure of a standard blues song. Until today I had never had the full experience of just what that might entail. This is a magic moment to be treasured.

Really enjoy Justin Adams and Juldeh Camera who open the mainstage. A wonderful set up for the night. However I have to get to the Twilight Stage to hear the Tom Fun Orchestra. This band is pure imagination and accomplishment. They are going to be very important or implode. Only the muses know how this is going to work out. However I am sold on punk-grunge Celtic when the talent is at this level. I have never heard anything like it, but want to hear much more of it - mostly because we are on the edge of becoming a post industrial economy and these guys know just what that is all about, hailing from Cape Breton.

Back at the mainstage, Steven Page is struggling. What initially seems quite effective fades to inconsequential very quickly. I am surprised at the limited guitar skills on display, which I think is contributing to the ineffectiveness.

The mini-set by Hayes Carll validates just what I said above. Here is talent opening light onto the soul.

Alejandro Escovedo comes on and lays down the smoking set that I have been waiting all weekend for. This man's talent is epic in proportions and he is as keen an observer as Homer (the 4000 years dead poet, children, not the TV character - although there may be something to ponder there). The totally powerful opening numbers establish who is master now. Then the 3 quieter tunes in homage to colleagues and his father's journey from Mexico to Texas (which must have been totally terrifying for a 12 year old guided by a 16 year old in 1919). Then the anthems that somehow reference the goals we must set for our society now that most of us have survived the Bush the Younger presidency. He subtly gives us the guideposts from his generation and instills the energy we will need to take up the cause. Amazing.

Glen Campbell is going to be Glen Campbell of old, with rusty pipes. There are some technical difficulties making him uncomfortable on stage. I seize the moment to take a power nap so I can hear this set in my mind's eye, back when I first watched it on TV.

I am in awe of how many tickets his brand has sold. It seems thousands leave as soon as his set is concluded. This in turn makes me completely in awe of the programmers for the Calgary Folk Festival. What a balancing act, bringing in the 'names' to sell tickets so they can bring in all the other acts and give them a chance to perform in front of thousands of people. My hat is off to the CFMF - you do it extremely well.

Bellowhead blows my mind. What a full rich sound they bring to a 700 year old genre by arranging the traditional English folk songs for both traditional and modern orchestral instruments. The arrangements are magical. And then they they start to play with the genre, and it becomes even more fun. I have only once before seen the crowd react so spontaneously (get well, Michael Franti). I have to take a bathroom break so walk the path back to the only potty that I believe might not be knee deep in urine soaked toilet paper and shit; all along the way through the food tent path couples are spontaneously jigging in front of each other and then embracing in a whirling dance celebrating sheer life. This is the CFMF at its best, yet again.

Sarah Harmer keeps the promise of the earlier afternoon with her closing set. It is as if Clio, the muse of history, has stepped into time to inspire us with songs of memory to keep each other going. At any rate, 12 hours into the day, and I would be prepared to stay up all night listening to this troubadour. Not to be, as the lanterns appear signaling that we must depart gently into the night.

However we will reassemble Sunday!