Ottawa Folk Festival 2009

We spent 2 1/2 days last weekend at the Ottawa Folk Festival and had an exceptional time. This was our second year attending and we had the same problem as last year - too much good music all at the same time. Which show to choose?

Friday night we attended concerts by The Sadies, Victoria Vox, Vishten, Kinnie Starr, Amy Millan (solo but part of Stars and Broken Social Scene) and Stephen Page (formerly of the Barenaked Ladies).

Saturday night headliners were the Arrogant Worms, James Hill and Anne Davison, the Good Lovelies and Bruce Cockburn.

Sunday night headliners for us were the Good Lovelies and Friends (Charlotte Cornfield, Tall Trees and Digging Roots), David Ross Macdonald and Joel Plaskett. Unfortunately we were too tired for the last concert of the evening and missed Idy Oulo from Cameroon.

One of the special features of the Festival is workshops held during the day where a number of artists come together to perform their songs. Usually the workshops have themes. Most of the time, the artists perform in turn after a brief intro of how their song relates to the theme. However some of the other artists will frequently "jam" with the others, resulting in some amazing moments.

Workshops on Saturday were Double Bill (Tall Trees and Victoria Vox), Three (Joel Plaskett, David Ross Macdonald and Catriona Sturton - sans Joel who was stuck in New York and was replaced by John ??? on guitar) and Favourite Colours (The Sadies, Amy Millan and Charlotte Cornfield). I also attended an afternoon concert by Mr. Something Something, a great band from Toronto and a show by That 1 Guy that turned into a show by That 1 Girl when Mishirangi had to fill in. Another case of performance anxiety when That 1 Guy's instrument didn't clear Customs in time for the show.

The other special feature of the Festival is the Cross-Cultural Artist Collaboration. These are a series of concerts where the performers get together before the Festival opens to select, practice and play a few pieces. They also write a new piece of music. Different groups perform a series of concerts with 10 or 15 performers per show. This concert culminated with the musicians marching off the stage and playing on the centre of the Dance Tent dance floor, to great cheering from the audience.

Sundays workshops that I attended were African Roots (Jah Youssaf, Abdoulayne Kone and Lewis Melville), Flowing with the Go (Anne Davison, Linsey Wellman, That 1 Guy and Robbie Anderman) and Outstanding In Their Field ( gardener Ed Lawrence, Charlotte Cornfield, The Arrogant Worms, Digging Roots, Stewed Roots and Tall Trees).

Of particular note was the Songs From The Road workshop with Bruce Cockburn, Stephen Page, Joel Plaskett and Ana Miura.

Songs from the Road drew such a crowd as to totally overwhelm the Hill Stage! It could easily have been a Main Stage show.

The afternoon concert was a rip roaring show by The Woodchoppers Association featuring Jah Youssaf and Abdoulayne Kone.

The highlights of the weekend were Victoria Vox, the Flowing with the Go workshop, Bruce Cockburn and Trevor Pool of Tall Trees:

Victoria Vox is a vivacious and fun ukelele musician from Maryland with a nice collection of well-crafted songs. She was busy playing a number of shows throughout the weekend and could often be seen watching other shows. My wife and I had a nice chat and learned where she honed her French skills, used on two of her great songs. She also produces her own tongue-in-cheek (pun intended) his and hers underwear collection featuring ukeleles! See them at her website http://www.victoriavox.com/!

The Flowing with the Go workshop was one of the best displays of musicianship I have seen. The concert began with That 1 Guy starting a very mid-eastern piece reminiscent of tracks from Peter Gabriel's Passion (Soundtrack to The Last Temptation of Christ) and the remaining artists improvised along. Here is a somewhat choppy sideways clip of the end of the piece (I must remember to keep the camera horizontal when filming video!) You can get a sense of the song in the dying notes. The remaining pieces from each of the other musicians were equally amazing.

Trevor Pool got my pick as an up-and-coming musician to watch. During the Good Lovelies and Friends show, Trevor was improvising on the guitar along with a Stewed Roots song as if he had played it all his life.

Finally, Bruce Cockburn was amazing as always on his own and improvising along during his Sunday workshop. Here he is signing an autograph for a young fan (my son).

One very unique aspect of the festival is that the stars are all wonderfully approachable and accessible. We had nice chats with Victoria Vox and David Ross Macdonald as they were walking on the Festival grounds and had CD signings, autographs and picture with Bruce Cockburn, Joel Plaskett, James Hill and Ana Miura. All were friendly and were genuinely pleased to talk with us. Compare that to other festivals where security guards usher the stars from their bus to the stage and back again.

The festival also featured a number of kid-friendly activities such as an instrument "petting zoo", with more different stringed instruments than I have ever seen and a number of workshops. My kids attended a tin whistle workshop as well as a blued harp or harmonica workshop where they got to keep their instruments courtesy of the Ottawa Folklore Centre. Ukelele building was also available this year.

I would like to thank the Festival organizers for putting on such a wonderful event this year. It was a very well run, fantastically family-oriented, friendly and intimate without any of the drunken roudiness of the other summer festival closer to town.

My Ottawa Folk Fest Highlights

We cut Friday night short and arrived to see Ottawa's Ana Miura. Her performance to a fairly small crowd was really great- beautiful voice, great guitar. The highlight was Ana playing a homemade ukelele (more on ukes later). We liked her so much we bought 2 disks at the CD Warehouse tent. Check Ana out at http://www.anamiura.com/.

We went with the entire family on Saturday.

The highlight of the afternoon was the Ukelele workshop where my kids got the chance to build a kit ukelele under the watchful, expert and patient eye of lutier Wolf Kater http://www.wolfkater.com/. Thanks Wolf! See http://www.ottawafolk.org/index.html#ukelele for more details from the Festival on the workshop.

The kids later went on to Ukelele 101 where they learned to play their creations. The instructors were a distinguished looking older man and a young bearded fellow who were introduced without much fanfare. Imagine our surprise to find the older man was Chalmers Doane, member of the Order of Canada for his work teaching children to play the ukelele and for developing a highly successful curriculum for schools. Chalmers is incidentally the father of the beautiful Canadian singer Melanie Doane!

The younger bearded man was James Hill who is considered one of the most talented ukelele musicians in the world, something that was confirmed watching a number of performances on Sunday! We were amazed by how humble and down-to-earth they both were.

One memorable quote from James: "Tuning, like aircraft maintenance, is always worthwhile". You can see more about James at http://www.ukulelejames.com/

Music highlights for me were D Rangers, Wil http://ibreakstrings.com/, (this guy is great - another CD purchase from CD Warehouse!), Ottawa's Roxanne Potvin (great voice and guitar), guitar great Colin Linden and of course Sarah Harmer http://www.sarahharmer.com/ who closed out the show with her great voice and band.

Sunday afternoon we attended a number of great workshops where a number of different artists were brought together to play their music and accompany each other.

More great shows here. Unfortunately we couldn't see all the workshops at once so missed Ana Miura and Sarah Harmer at the "Tuned Into Nature" workshop.

We did see Dala with Radoslav Lorkovic who played an amazing accordian and piano on his own songs. He also appeared with the D Rangers on Saturday. They were unfortunately drowned out by sound bleed from the Dance tent by Donna the Buffalo, another great band from upstate New York, featuring accordian and washboard.

We also saw James Hill, Anne Davison, Roxanne Potvin and Catherine MacLellan at the Blacksheep Live workshop. This was one of the first times we heard James play ukelele on his own, with partner Anne Davison playing cello and accompanying others. Anne by the way, lights up the stage when she smiles! Roxanne Potvin was great again doing acoustic versions of her songs. Catherine MacLellan from down east (Halifax, but her heart belongs to PEI evidently) has got a wonderful voice. She was the hardest working performer on Sunday, performing on 3 stages throughout the day.

Later we saw Colin Linden, Lynn Mile and Catherine again in a tribute to Rasputin's, the Ottawa folk music venue that was destroyed by fire earlier this summer.

The evening concerts began with The Duhks, followed by James Hill and Anne Davison again. Great performances by the Duhks. James demonstrated his master of the ukelele by showing how to use it as a percussion instrument and play it with chopsticks, as well as play some of his own compositions, Chalmer Doane's and traditional arrangements with Anne on cello.

The highlight of the evening for us for powerful music was American blues folk songstres Odetta who in her 70's has a powerful voice surpassed by only her wit. In introducing one song, she was discussing birth control and wryly commented that now, as ever, was still a good time to use a rubber (condom) if you are having sex!

The evening was closed off by Rufus Wainwright. We left during his performance as the battle between "chairs" and standing people escalated and unfortunately spoiled the warm fuzzy feeling that the small and intimate performances from the preceding days had created.

The top performers in my mind from the weekend were Colin Linden, who is just an amazing guitar player and was improvising to play along with Lynn Miles and Catherine MacLellan. Also James Hill in his performances with Catherine and Roxanne. Just incredible!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend of great music. On big thank you to the Festival for making it a welcoming event for families! The children paid no admission and the Ukelele building and Ukelele 101 workshop, Instrument petting zoo and kid activities made it a real family event.

P.S. What is it about bringing chairs to outdoor music events and expecting people will not stand in front of the stage? Take a hint people - if you want to sit, go to the National Arts Centre - they don't have a mosh pit there!

Great Weekend at the Ottawa Folk Festival!

I've just spent two and a half wonderful days listening to some fantastic music at the Ottawa Folk Festival, held at Brittania Park.

I wouldn't classify myself as a "folkie" normally - I went mainly to see Saturday headliner Sarah Harmer. However I really had a great time and expanded my musical boundaries with the wide variety of folk music styles.

The weather was great except for a bit of a shower on Friday evening, there was some great food including fair from Ottawa's Green Door restaurant, great beer from Big Rock Brewery and of course great tunes and a couple of really cool events.

More to come!