A Wonderful Day at the Ottawa Folk Festival

Saturday morning dawns partly sunny, and soon to be very hot. Showers predicted, but who gives a .... well, who cares. Looks like a gorgeous day to head out to Britannia Park for day 2 of the Ottawa Folk Festival. Feeling a little buzzed at seeing Bruce Cockburn tonight ... awesome.

It's 9:30 and I need to be in Westborough to get Jackie at 10am. As usual, I'm leaving later than planned and am feeling rushed ... no big deal though because the CRV cruises at speed with no effort. I have Eva Cassidy blaring ... her voice is so pure. I was to be surprised later by pure voices in unexpected places.

Jackie wants a serious caffeine hit so we stop at Bridgehead and then off we go to the park. I comment that her original idea to bike there was the right idea as parking is alleged to be difficult there unless you arrive really early. So we make a plan to park in some random street and walk in if necessary. Of course, folk fest is a pretty informal affair with a lot of long-timers attending and they tend to come in later, so arriving at the opening means there is always lots of parking ... a little nugget picked up from Jackie's sister Linda later in the day.

So ... we park and grab her pack and my cameras -- I'm still sweating whether the big dog is going to get through, but I needn't have worried ... they are even less worried about that stuff than Blues Fest. As we enter the grounds, the first of the "hydration stations" comes into view with a horrid bilingual pun for a name ... EAUasis ... :-)

As we wander the grounds, trying to orient ourselves and find a stage or two (we managed to miss the programs as we entered), we pause for a moment at a huge stand of orange daisies ... there must be thousands of flowers. And there is one huge butterfly that lands way in the back. The big dog has my "Shatner" lens on it (the one I bought to shoot William Shatner in Florida a couple of years ago) and I am able to isolate the butterfly from a long way off ... although it isn't all that sharp.


We eventually found our way to the dance tent ... which was as far from the parking as was possible in these grounds. We arrived just in time to see the Junkyard Symphony training a child to stand up and draw a big cheer on cue so they could do their "big trick" as their finale. Very sweet child ... so cute.

Despite the regulations against recording devices, I was able to film the entire big trick, although it is incredibly jerky because I had to hold the camera in the crook of my arm to hide the fact that I was recording. That made for a bit of a mess, but I got it and you can see what they do ...



We wandered off but then realized that the dance tent was hosting a sacred dance at 11:30, so we thought that might be interesting to see. This particular music and dance was led by Wendy Morell, pictured here:


And the music was provided by Debbie Danbrook, a master Shakuhachi player. I think that's actually her standing far right. It is apparently quite rare for women to be taught the Shakuhachi in Japan, as it is a monk's flute for meditation. I can say that she plays beautifully. This is an instrument that I could listen to all day long ... breathy, plaintive ... rich and gorgeous. About 15 women danced very slowly around the floor, concentrating on the sound and flushing their stress by connecting to the music ... perhaps to the vibrations.

I have created a single movie with short clips of several concerts Jackie and I saw after this one ... I have quite a few images, but only one video. So the video will appear at the end of this segment (which ends as we move onto the main stage ...)

From the dance tent, we wander to the Hill Stage (situated on a hill ... go figure) to see Music to Garden By. We saw Penny Lang sing an old-style tune, kind of a blue grassy thing.


Penny had cellist Anne Davison (who would later play with Bruce Cockburn) and I think Peter Cancura as seen in this image.


But the film I captured is a nice little song by two people whose names I could not find in the program (their faces do not match the names that the program said should have been at the stage) ... but they sang well and the fellow with the beard played a mean flute.


Note: Why all the black and white? Well, the light in these tented stages us pretty awful. The color is all over the place, and the images just look better this way ...

From here, we wandered over to the food court for some lunch. There were numerous restaurants there, and Jackie's favourite vegetarian restaurant, The Green Door, was at the festival for the first time. This seemed like a good opportunity to try their fare. Jackie had a Spanakapita, which seemed like a cross between a large samosa and a spring roll, but which was filled with spinach, something else and feta cheese. I was not ready to commit to something like that so I took the dahl and snow peas on brown rice. Very nice, both of them.

Jackie offered a piece of the ... we ended up calling them "spanky pitas" becaus ethe name was so hard to remember ... and I found out that I'd made a tragic error. These things are incredibly tasty ... they are really nicely spiced.

Anyway ... the meal was nice, we met someone from the mother province (Manitoba) and had a nice conversation. The only problem being the half dozen hornets that needed constant dodging. Festivals ....

So afterwards it was off to see Jeremy Sills and Theda Phoenix, a sound healer partnered with an intuitive singer-songwriter. I should note here that there was a sound healing conference co-located with the folk fest, so there were many people with specialties around healing and sound combined. Very interesting.

Jackie knew Jeremy from previous house concerts, and I was introduced to him later in the afternoon. Very nice fellow. Here is Theda speaking with someone in the audience before things get going.


Jeremy gets things set up and I catch a pose that we dubbed his "John Lennon" look. This is the only one of this series that I left in color ... it seems to work that way.


The next three images come from their performance. (I also got a clip into the clips movie later on.)




I like to process healers in soft tones ... it just seems appropriate.

Somewhere in here we spent half an hour in the Ottawa Folklore Center tent among all the wonderful instruments they brought along. Talk about fun ... rain sticks, finger pianos, every kind of shaker. all sorts of drums (exactly like the one Theda is holding in the above image) ... awesome. We ended up with a drum duet that I presume was brutally loud, as I was just discovering how much fun that drum can be with a soft headed stick ... boom boom boom and so on. Fast and loud ... that's how I like it :-)

We wandered all the way to the other end of the grounds to see the point stage (out on a point of land ... get it?) ... which is next to a huge canvas teepee. Unfortunately, there was nothing interesting in the teepee, which we discovered by covertly peeking under the fold. Just some guys having a ... conference.

(I heard you say the other word in your head there ...)

Here we spent a moment watching a harmony performance at the point stage with the Arrogant Worms, the Breakmen, and Michael Bell and Jody Benjamin. I'm not actually sure who is pictured here:


It was decent stuff ... some nice blue grass and some other stuff. That was around 2:40pm.

We wandered a bit more when Jackie's sister Linda came into view. They caught up and we wandered towards Linda's husband Hans (please let that be the right spelling) ... and from there it was a whirlwind of meeting nieces (I will humbly plead ignorance of the rest of the names as my swiss cheese brain had run out of memory by that point) and then going off to eat again.

This time I made no mistake ... dahl and spanky pita for me. Jackie went with the pita and tofu stir fry. I tried an organic root beer too. Now that's a great meal. And only a few little hornets to dodge this time ...


And this AWESOME black hornet ... so fricken cool!


Anyway ... we carried the plates and drinks over to the hill stage to watch a really nice concert called Waterbound with Vishten. These guys are really, really good. Talk about rocken and rollen with the fiddle ... I was really impressed.

The fiddle is played by Pascal Miousse ...


Pastelle LeBlanc plays accordion ...


And Emmannuelle LeBlanc plays Bohdran (a drum I think), whistles, piano, voice etc...


Unfortunately, I was unable to grab a shot of their fourth player, Louis-Charles Vigneault.

And at this point it is time to link you to the little clips video so you can see and hear all the acts I named to this point ... enjoy ...



This was a great little concert ... lots of energy. There was someone else who was expected to join them but had been delayed in two cities over night ... they arrived just as Vishten was done, so they took over the equipment and began playing. It was basically music on a child's level ... sort of anyway. We got up and took my dishes back to the dish tent ... they use real plates and cutlery as you would expect at a folk festival ... always looking out for the environment. I'm impressed by the way ... this is good stuff ...

I think we went off to get the blanket and a little chair (I would use that and eventually destroy it by leaning too hard) to set up by her family. I bought a water bottle on the way in and got it filled at a hydration station. When we arrived at the family blanket, we shifted the blanket next to it enough to make room for ours.

Here I should note how respectful the folk fest crowd is ... all the chairs and blankets are dropped on the ground early in the day to basically reserve a spot for the main stage and no one moves them! You get whatever seat you can and then leave until the shows you want to see. Amazing ... really.

Somewhere in this time frame, we wandered over to the hall stage, where an impromptu gathering was going full steam in ... you guessed it ... the hallway between two buildings. Really weird ...

Anyway, I got some images of these unknown players (and I looked hard in the program but no matching gaces) ...




Am I hallucinating, or does this guy give off a Jeff Goldbloom vibe that won't quit?


And no chance when shooting against the sun ...


We then wandered to the point again and Jackie pulled out a spectacular dark chocolate bar to munch on as we walked ... a girl who carries dark chocolate around in her pack ... does it get any better ...

On our way to the point, we met Jeremy Sills again, and I was introduced. He enjoyed a bit of chocolate, but was rushed by another appointment. Nice fellow ...

We arrived short of the water as we found that the entire grounds are surrounded by fencing this year. Too bad, as it would have been very refreshing to wander about the shore and feel the breeze directly off the water ...

I think we went back then for the Arrogant Worms. But I'm getting my time frames mixed up here I think ...

The arrogant worms had the pleasure of opening the evening while the sun was still above the horizon ... blasting directly into their faces. They cracked some jokes regarding their ever falling stature as they get pushed earlier into the evening ... it was kind of funny :-)

I enjoyed their set ... but it's a comedy act and I was ready for some serious music. Anyway ... a few images ... while the sun is still up.




Next was an intermission. I don't know who this is, but I liked what little I heard of her and I really liked the light I got for this image ... wow ...

Edit: I *do* know who this is. Jeff (Jennifer) Hale of Stewed Roots. She contacted me to ask to use this image, and of course I am thrilled that she likes it and to give her the use of it. Very cool ...


Then would have been Anne Davison and James Hill, but we got out of there and wandered around some more. No real idea where, but I know that we ended up in the dance tent and ended up getting some booze. Yeah ... that's the ticket.

A glass of wine for Jackie and a hard lemonade for me (hey ... it's all they had and thanks very much Jackie) and soon it was time to head back to watch the main acts.

We got settled and it started getting dark really fast. What a fantastic night ... stars everywhere, warm, wonderful smell off the water. And two great acts to watch ... awesome!

And now it was time for the Good Lovelies to come on. A three woman band with voices like angels. I really enjoy harmony and they really know how to do it. I bought both their CDs the next day ... but back to them.


The girl on the right was considered the sweetest of the bunch by the women in close proximity to me, although I did not quite hear how the vote was cast ... but anyway, here she is.


And here is their magnificent love song called "Lie Down" ... although I normally consider the voice just another instrument, this one grabbed me and I found myself enjoying the lyrics. Aided of course by their harmonies ...



And that was it for the Good Lovelies ... a note here: you cannot shorten their name to just "The Lovelies" because there is already another female band by the name. In fact, they came up when I searched the Good Lovelies on iTunes and I liked their stuff so much I bought it too ... they do a nice version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" ... Jon's only comment was "it's not the Beatles" ...

The brief intermission between the Good Lovelies and Bruce Cockburn was filled by a pair of African or Carribean gentlemen in native dress and playing what looked like large dulcimers. very interesting music. I cannot find their names in the program ... sorry.


And then .... drum roll please ... it was time for the main event. Wow ... Bruce Cockburn in the flesh.




His white hair is a challenge to capture properly, but otherwise they lit him very well. I am very happy with what I captured.

Somewhere in here he played my favourite of his ... Rocket Launcher. My apologies for the night video quality ... I think I should have engaged the neutral density filter to cut the light ... duh.



He followed Rocket Launcher with the first ever live performance of Trans Don't Run Here Anymore with Anne Davison accompanying him on cello. What a treat. And here it is.





A wide shot at very high ISO (6400) to show the overall ambiance ... I liked how it was lit.



Retuning ... he does that a lot ...



The last two video are the finale, which is the wonderful "Wondering Where The Lions Are" ...



... and then the 2-song encore ... i.e. the real finale. This was Tokyo followed by Anything Can Happen.



And that was that ... off to the cars and the slow progression out of the park. There was one more treat left in the evening ... on the way to drop Jackie at home, she was trying to remember a specific song and broke into a half dozen bars to try to remember it.

I was stunned. So much so that I don't even remember complementing it ...

Oh yeah and one more treat after that ... a nice sunburn ...