The 33rd annual
Vancouver Folk Music Festival, held at beautiful picturesque Jericho Beach, wrapped up last night with lanterns, song and dancing. The weather fully cooperated and there were many sunkissed and sunburnt happy faces in hats and bikinis. My best estimate in terms of attendance is ~4000. There were many in attendance who have traveled from other parts of BC, including Vancouver Island, to celebrate folk and folk-like music under the blue skies.
There were several personal highlights for me at the Folk Fest this year, the biggest being the
Malahat Revue's homecoming show. The chemistry and interactions between the four artists/bands -
Hannah Georgas,
Aidan Knight,
Said the Whale and
Jeremy Fisher - brought smiles to the faces of the audience, and songs like Knight's "The Sun" were palpably lush with an intensity that's impossible to create with himself alone.
Other highlights include:
Shane Koyczan's moving poetry set to the competent backing of his band the
Short Story Long.
The workshop Saturday morning with Tucson, Arizona's
Calexico,
Alex Cuba from Smithers, BC, and
Bahamas (Toronto's Afie Jurvanen) where Cuba out-solo'ed Jurvanen on his own song, and the obligatory set closer "Purple Rain" was accompanied by
Calexico's lap steel.
Daniel Champagne, a young guitarist hailing from Australia, blew everyone away with his amazing guitar prowess. He tapped and beat at his faithful acoustic and made amazingly rhythmic arpeggios of sound come out of the violence he was doing to that guitar. Definitely an artist I'm looking to check out more.
The Gertrudes and the
United Steelworkers of Montreal accompanying
Timber Timbre and magnifying TT's forest of eerie folk with their horns and strings. and that it was incredibly captivating to be enveloped in these moody, nighttime tunes under the beating sun.
For the full photo sets from
Friday,
Saturday and
Sunday, check out
my Flickr. And stay tuned for interviews with
Timber Timbre and the Malahat Revue!
