It was an exciting day for me yesterday (Sunday August 28, 2011). While I've been writing this blog for over a year now, yesterday was my first experience at a major folk festival. The Ottawa Folk Festival is, as the name suggests, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada's National Capital. Ottawa is roughly a three and a half hour drive up Hwys. 401 and 416, which is more than manageable. This trip however, was completely spur of the moment. While contemplating on whether or not I was prepared to make the drive on Saturday night, I pretty much decided to go at the drop of a hat on Sunday morning. The festival itself had been going on since Thursday, with such top flight folk and Americana acts as Steve Earle and the Dukes and Duchesses, with Allison Moorer, Steve's son Justin Townes Earle, Bruce Hornsby and the Noise Makers, Hawksley Workman, the Punch Brothers, with a long list of local, national and international artists taking three stages over a four day weekend. My reasons for going up on Sunday to check out a few people I've wanted to see for a long time, and they all happened to be playing on Sunday, one right after the other. So, while I would love to have been there for all four days, if I could only do one day it was going to be Sunday. I'll have the concert reviews from Sean McCann, Hayes Carll, Kelly Willis & Bruce Robison, and Jimmy Rankin posted over the next two days, but for now I'm going to talk about this festival.
The Ottawa Folk Festival, as I mentioned, was my first experience at what I'll call a major folk festival. I had hoped to check out the Newport Folk Festival this year, but you know how it goes, things happen and sadly, I couldn't be there. I will say though, for a first experience, the Ottawa Folk Festival is absolutely wonderful. I arrived in time to see Sean McCann take the main stage at 4:45, with a crowd of hearty people that braved the effects of then Tropical Storm Irene. Don't let the word "tropical" fool you either ... it was anything but tropical. It was freakin' cold for August. It's like someone turned summer off at around midnight, or some crap like that. Anyway, I got my ticket and walk over to the stage to listen to the show, and I can't help but notice how different this festival is compared to the festival I'm used to attending in July. If you'll recall an earlier piece for this blog, I usually attend Jamboree in the Hills, a four day country music festival that is one of the biggest parties on the planet. One of my good friends sums up Jamboree in the Hills quite nicely, specifically some of the craziness that you can see over the course of those four days ... "You can't make this s**t up." And that's the truth. At Jamboree in the Hills, you truly can't make that s**t up. There are at least two moments over the course of that time that will make your jaw drop, make a double-take and just simply say "What in the hell did I just see?!"
Clearly, the Ottawa Folk Festival doesn't quite have that crazy shock value, at least from what I could tell on Sunday. The crowd was a great cross-section of people. There were students, couples, groups of friends, artists, hippies and a few eccentric types, all of which made for a very cool feeling. Everyone was there to celebrate the art of it all, not so much the party. There was no judgement on anyone. Whether it was the music, the artist and musician workshops, or the visual artists selling their works in the vendor section, everyone who attended was there to celebrate arts, music and people. It was a very relaxed atmosphere. I quite liked the community aspect of the Festival, as there were tents set up for jam sessions where attendees can bring their own instruments and play among old and new friends for a time. Health and wellness is actually promoted at this Festival, with organic fare offered in the food services area of the Festival grounds. A different kind of wellness is offered at Jamboree, which admittedly, is pretty cool too for those few days.
I would say ten, twelve, or maybe fifteen years ago, I don't think I would have appreciated or "got" the Ottawa Folk Festival for what it is. It seems to me the Ottawa Folk Festival, and indeed other folk festivals that I have researched since returning home early this morning, that arts, music, health and well-being are staples of folk festivals in North America. I can't speak about overseas festivals because I haven't researched them yet. But this was a very cool, very relaxing and invigorating experience. This doesn't mean I won't be going back to Jamboree, far from it really. I'm planning on going back next year for my thirteenth visit. It's a community as well, and a community of really great people that I get to see once a year and I think the world of them. But I can tell that I've grown to really love and appreciate this type of music that I really don't believe I would have accepted in my 20's, for whatever strange reason. Whatever that reason was, it's not relevant today. The Ottawa Folk Festival was the first major folk festival that I attended ... the first of many to come.
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