Ottawa Folk Festival – Saturday

“I think there may be two Ottawa Folk Festivals happening this weekend: a variation on the Bluesfest scene at the main-stage and a variation on the traditional Ottawa Folk Festival scene at other stages,” I wrote in my previous post after Friday night’s offerings.

After Saturday and Sunday’s full day schedules, I’m convinced of that. During the weekend days, I felt like I was at a folk festival (in spite of the fact that the Falls and RavenLaw stages and the jamming areas still had to contend with overbearing sound bleed from the main-stage much of the time.

When we arrived on the grounds a little after noon, the Old Sod Band was playing for contra dancers at the Falls Stage and the workshop stages were all getting into gear. As I’ve mentioned before, the daytime workshops, for me, are the heart and soul of a good folk festival. Despite the challenges of a it being a festival that wasn’t booked with workshops in mind, Arthur McGregor and his team at the Ottawa Folklore Centre did a good job of putting together the workshop programming.

The first workshop we settled into was Storytelling and Mythology featuring Anaïs Mitchell, Garland Jeffreys and Gandalf Murphy. Although I didn’t warm up to the Gandalf Murphy band, I enjoyed Anaïs’ songs from Hadestown, her folk-opera about the Orpheus myth – which was perfect for the workshop’s theme – and Garland's great story songs about the New York City hew grew up in.

Then it was back to the Falls Stage to hear a set of accomplished acoustic pop songs by Ron “Doc” Weiss. Accompanied by a bassist and percussionist, the set was highlighted by Ron’s intricate acoustic guitar playing in a style not unlike Bruce Cockburn’s.

Then it was to the workshop area to hear an excellent session called Old Traditions, New Songs with Rick Fines, Vance Gilbert and Jayme Stone. Rick played songs he’d written based in the ragtime and jazz traditions, Vance did songs based on jazz – including singing in the voices of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Tom Waits, Vance is a dead-on impressionist – and a cappella balladry, while Jayme’s banjo (and his fiddler accompanist) took us around the world and back to the classical era.

The workshop schedule included several on-stage interview sessions and I was tapped to conduct an interview with the Scottish-Australian singer-songwriter Colin Hay, who first came to prominence about three decades ago as lead singer, guitarist and principal songwriter of Men At Work, one of the most successful bands of the early-1980s. I had a great time chatting with Colin about his career and hearing him play a few of his excellent recent songs. (I left the festival grounds before his two-hour evening concert later that night, but I heard from several people that it was one of the finest concerts of the festival.)

We finished up the workshop day watching a nice Bluebird North songwriters’ round-robin featuring Rick Fines and two accomplished Ottawa artists, Ana Miura and Megan Jerome.

All in all, it was a great afternoon of folk festivaling and we decided to call it a day after the workshop area shut down for the evening. I really wanted to get some rest and be back on Sunday for a full day leading up to Levon Helm’s festival-closing concert.

--Mike Regenstreif

Ottawa Folk Festival -- Friday night

On its second night, the Ottawa Folk Festival felt more like Bluesfest and less like a “folk” festival: big crowds drawn by specific artists – in particular a very loud rock band called City and Colour and Steve Earle, who seemed to be equally loud at times.

How loud were they?

Loud enough that it put dampers on other artists valiantly playing on other stages.

City and Colour didn’t interest me – but singer-songwriter Garland Jeffreys and banjo player extraordinaire Jayme Stone playing simultaneously on other stages did. My plan was to catch some of Garland’s set then dash over and catch some of Jayme’s. I was so charmed with Garland Jeffreys – who I’d never seen live before – that I stayed put and missed Jayme.

Playing acoustic guitar and accompanied by just another guitarist Garland’s long set drew on his rich catalogue of classic material like the epic “Spanish Town” and “Wild in the Streets” and new songs from the recently released CD, The King of In Between, his first  album in a decade, and a great version of Bob Dylan’s “Pledging My Time.”

The only problem with the set – which took place on the RavenLaw Stage, a beautiful, natural amphitheatre, was the overwhelming sound bleed from City and Colour on the main-stage.

My plan for the second half of the evening was to catch the first half of Steve Earle’s set starting at 9:00 pm, then scoot over and catch Vance Gilbert who was starting at 9:30. Getting to the main-stage area where City and Colour was just finishing and Earle was following changed my mind. The area was just too crowded for comfort. It was a stand-up crowd from front-to-back. Forget about folk festival etiquette of low chairs on one side, high chairs on the other and no-smoking in the middle of the crowd.

So I headed over to the Falls Stage to wait for Vance Gilbert’s set. That area slowly filled with an audience of “folk festival” types that built to a nice crowd by the time Vance came on at 9:30. Waiting for Vance, Steve Earle was loud enough that we could hear the first 30 minutes of his set just fine from across the festival site.

Vance was in fine form, he sang great, despite complaining of allergies, his guitar playing was as sophisticated as a schooled jazz musician, and he was funnier than almost any comedian I’ve seen in a comedy club.

Among the highlights were such songs as “Icarus By Night” and “Unfamiliar Moon.”

He was even in good humour about his recent nightmare with United Airlines and made light of the overbearing sound of Steve Earle’s set that continually flooded in.

I think there may be two Ottawa Folk Festivals happening this weekend: a variation on the Bluesfest scene at the main-stage and a variation on the traditional Ottawa Folk Festival scene at other stages.

Today I’m looking forward to the three daytime workshop stages kicking in. To me, that’s what a real folk festival is all about.

Among today’s workshops is an on-stage interview I’m conducting with Colin Hay at 4:00-4:45 pm on the Heron Stage.

--Mike Regenstreif