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SATURDAY, JULY 23rd
Thirteen hours of straight music await, beginning early in the morning and lasting well into the night. All on a hot, dehydrating day. So let us continue.
Workshops Ahoy!
This is the first music festival I have ever been to that has not only encouraged collaboration, but also scheduled it into the event, pairing groups of musicians together to noodle, experiment, and trade licks. Six stages devoted hour-long slots from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. for collaboration, and a musical feast ensued.
Friends with Benefits
Arrested Development :: Calgary
By James Stangroom |
Buck 65, Tortoise, and Hawksley Workman. Together. Playing songs off their aforementioned new release Secret House against the World with Hawksley adding percussion, the triage of genre-bending musicians almost created a new genre on their own; soulful, hip-hop-spiked post rock. With Buck 65 handling vocal duties, Workman was able to showcase his impressive drumming ability while Tortoise backed up the dually talented troubadours. Simply brilliant.
Next was Arrested Development backing up the Holmes Brothers. Atlanta's Holmes Brothers is another legendary act that has been successfully combining Southern blues and soul since the early 1970's. With members of the newly invigorated Arrested Development adding hip-hop and funk to the mix, a unique supergroup was born. The result was wondrous - honest and traditional, while progressive and contemporary. After they redefined "Amazing Grace" was redefined for the collective, it was apparent that Sunday had definitely arrived a day early.
Afternoon Headliner: The Del McCoury Band
Del McCoury Band :: Calgary Folk Fest by Shain Shapiro |
Fresh from receiving his unprecedented eighth Bluegrass Entertainer of the Year award in Nashville, Del McCoury and his bluegrass boys flew up to Calgary for an hour of world class, virtuosic bluegrass. Del McCoury is on the board of directors in bluegrass. He begun singing with Bill Monroe in the 1960's and has since churned a progressive-meets-traditional hybrid of Monroe's vision, combining Southern bluegrass professionalism with an ideology that is anything but time-honored. Del has played with Phish and Steve Earle, all while staying true to the one microphone, suit-clad acoustic alchemy that governs traditional bluegrass. Brandishing a cluster of new songs like "She Can't Burn Me Now" from the recent The Company We Keep as well as old standards "Working on a Mountain" and "It's Just the Night," The Del McCoury Band was fantastic, demonstrating that bluegrass has soul, mined just as much from the back roads that envelop the Appalachians as the river that winds through downtown Calgary.
A Good Old Fashioned Hoedown
Hawksley Workman :: Calgary Folk Fest by Shain Shapiro |
Immediately following their headlining set on the main stage, Del and the boys switched into casual attire and joined Bill Frisell's banjoist Danny Barnes and Canadian bluegrass quintet Hungry Hill for a set of back porch standards. The ultimate festival highlight, Del McCoury led eleven musicians through "Beauty of my Dreams," "I Saw the Light," "Polka on the Banjo," and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," amongst a dozen collective standards. With four banjos, three mandolins, and two basses trading solos throughout the hour, Del held back, openly overtaken by the talent surrounding him and the expression of awe shared by each musician while playing in front of such an iconic figure. While Del and Hungry Hill's vocalist Jenny Lester alternated vocal duties, mandolinist Ronnie McCoury and banjoist Danny Barnes led the fiery communal hoedown, magnified by the intimacy of the festival stage.
A true testament to the truism surrounding the Calgary Folk Festival, the Del McCoury/Hungry Hill collaboration celebrated the spirit of pure folk. Hungry Hill, an up-and-coming Yukon Territory-based act was starstruck in being able to share the stage with the McCoury family, and Del was more than happy to be a part of another musical evolution. It was an hour of amenable, freewheeling exploration. It was folk at its finest.
Tortoise finished off the workshops on Saturday with their fierce hybrid of edgy post-rock, electronica, and kraut-rock. Although they started late, the band was in fine form, running through complicated percussion arrangements, call-and-response improvisation with electric and acoustic bells, and dominant electric guitar work. A definite surprise band to be featured at a folk festival, the Chicago quintet exhibited that beneath their musical behemoth, folk influences drive the sound as much as any other, putting as much emphasis on songwriting as instrumentation. After forty minutes of genre-bridging mush, the side stages quieted, giving way to another night of almost-folk under the stars.
The Final Curtain
Bill Frisell Quartet :: Calgary Folk Fest by Shain Shapiro |
Bill Frisell opened up the main stage by playing a short set of progressive folk, surrounded by his quartet of acoustic, classically trained musicians. Exploring dark, foreboding territory usually skipped over in mainstream folk, Frisell crafted a gothic stew of all things folk, garnished at the seams with free jazz and ambient pop. With a unique, metal-laced arrangement of "Pretty Polly," Frisell's moody mindfuck exhibited why he is one of the most sought-after guitarists around, regardless of genre.
Mainstream folk diva Sarah Harmer followed suit with a relaxing set of downcast folk, showcasing her radio hits along with a few environmental gibes aimed at politicians passing bills to pave green space in Ontario. Leading with her Canadian top-ten single "Basement Apartment" and political barb "Escarpment Blues," Harmer's pleasing, tranquil tone was welcome, especially whilst fighting the day's exhaustion brought on by the Calgary heat. Yet, Harmer's songs are nothing special. Battling with the typical, female singer/songwriter syndrome, Harmer relies more on folk and country influences to differentiate herself from the masses. Elements did appear, but nothing that Erin McKeown or Kathleen Edwards have yet to experiment with, leaving the set feeling ultimately uninspired and musically homogenous.
The final surprise of the festival was hip-hop legends Arrested Development, seemingly reformed and on a sort of reunion tour. With four vocalists (two male/two female), bass, DJ, and drummer/guitarist, the Atlanta collective breezed through a strong set of conventional hip-hop (with all the audience interaction) and older, hilariously recognizable hits including "Mr. Wendell." While Arrested Development may be a decade past their prime, conscious, funky hip-hop never goes out of style.
FAREWELL HOME ON THE RANGE
While another full day of workshops and main stage performances followed on Sunday, weather, exhaustion, and other work commitments forced an early goodbye late Saturday night. Regardless, the Calgary Folk Festival was an experience that will not dissipate any time soon. The openness to collaboration, relaxed attitude, waterfront location, and environmentally friendly work ethic translated into a family-friendly, laid-back music festival laced with all things folk and/or folk-related. This annual celebration should be circled as a mainstay on any alternative music fan's summer checklist because it personifies the imagination and socially conscious ideology embedded within all of us, only with more dancing and less trash.
Shain Shapiro
JamBase | Canada
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