Your beauty must be rubbing off — RFF 2011 Pt. 4 or so
Parting can be such sweet sorrow but I have to say the end of the 2011 Regina Folk Festival was more the former than the latter.
The closing Sunday of the show had a distinct air of youth, vitality, newness in a very simple way. That’s not to say that the two previous days were hopelessly mired in the past, far from it; there was just a whole lot of enthusiasm at play.
Audiences (and the twitterverse alike) were abuzz with excitement over the daytime workshop sets, which began with a meeting of the minds Regina indie fans were clamoring for: Mike Dawson and Carl Johnson from Library Voices, along with local pianist Jeffery Straker and Marta Jaciubek-McKeever from weekend favourites ESL, teamed up with Fred Penner for a songwriting seminar. It apparently caused more than a little excitement, not just for the fact that Penner gave Johnson a bit of a clinic on how to properly tune a guitar. Later in the day the most adorable and enthusiastic acts possible teamed up for a workshop about love songs, including members of Hey Ocean!, Straker, and the boundless enthusiasm of Calgary’s Michael Bernard Fitzgerald. Crowds were also impossibly deep during the last set of workshops, including a grouping of locals Rah Rah, Library Voices, and Indigo Joseph. Hawksley Workman also hosted one of his own at the same time, surrounded by a cadre of ladies including Ashleigh from Hey Ocean!, Cris Derksen of ESL, and Cœur de pirate’s Béatrice Martin. That is some kind of inspired combination of artists and they did not fail to give the audience a unique experience to take home with them.
In the interest of full disclosure I have to admit I missed out on much of the day’s events. In addition to writing about my Saturday experience I was also dog-tired; I’d been out sick from work literally all week and two nights of festival-ing took a toll. So, sadly, I missed the main stage performance by Vancouver’s delightful gospel-inflected vocal group The Sojourners. It was one of the sets I’d been the most excited about, truthfully, especially after hearing all of (and seeing some of) their Saturday workshop session with Etran Finatawa and Shakura S’Aida’s backing band. During our interview the group detailed the decades they spent singing gospel in their American hometowns before getting together a few years ago, becoming Canadian citizens, and recording for the marvelous Black Hen label run by Steve Dawson. The constantly-smiling troupe were gracious and conciliatory, belying the belly-fire their powerful singing produces. Their music has undeniably blissful results, whether you’ve got the faith or not. My favourite example is their take on The Mississippi Sheiks’ song “He Calls That Religion (But I Know He’s Going to Hell When He Dies),” which brought a certain amount of fire and brimstone to the Saturday proceedings. I’m sure it must have gone over well on the main stage too.
Swift Current’s The Hard Ramblers provided some semi-local flavour in a teaser set after The Sojourner’s main stage kick-off to the evening. Banjo player and singer Eliza Doyle stopped by the CJTR tent earlier Saturday to outline the group’s deep-roots sound. Still a young group, the band put out its first CD Way On Down The Road this year, a collection of originals and a couple covers that Doyle promises is only the beginning of the group’s recorded output.
Regina’s own Library Voices appeared next, stoking the home-town crowd ahead of the release of their sophomore album Summer of Lust, out in less than three weeks time. My prairie dog pal Stephen Whitworth described the set thusly:
One of the liveliest shows I’ve ever seen at the Folk Fest. “Proof of what a lot of sugar in your diet can do,” as emcee Fred Penner said.
Now if you’ve seen the band you know that’s saying an awful lot. It isn’t too hard to picture, considering the band is firing on all cylinders right now: they’ve booked shows for this summer and fall as far away as California and their new record is a barn-burner. They put a limited number of copies up for sale over the course of the weekend, one of which I happened to have the good fortune to pick up. It’s a lithe set of songs that have a live-from-the-floor feeling, with much less of a glossed-up and studio-y temperance to it. After a few introductory listens I’m inclined to say the songs might have more impact and staying power than their debut (which, despite having some unadulterated pop gems for songs has not found as permanent a space on my iPod as I would’ve expected).
I finally managed to drag myself out to the park just as Cœur de pirate was beginning their set. Béatrice Martin and her three-piece backing band were a surprisingly big draw. During our Saturday interview she seemed genuinely flummoxed about her success the last few years in English-speaking areas (the project got a big boost in 2009 when a viral video containing one of her songs was played on Good Morning America south of the border). She admits the brunt of her efforts have been made in Quebec and France, but I have to say nearly every woman in her 20’s I spoke to ahead of the festival insisted Cœur de pirate was one of the acts they were most excited for and only one of them speaks any French.
The appeal, I have to say, isn’t entirely unsurprising. Whether or not you speak en francais the songs have a very immediate quality that is undeniable. On record Béatrice’s voice is sprightly and coy, a cooing soprano that comes across as delicate, playful, and fragile in all the places that it needs to be. Those same qualities are just as readily apparent in a live setting but the songs don’t seem to have the same power without a bit of compression and studio polish to make them pop. Martin avails herself best when her piano is in play, but when she stepped away from the keys and let her band’s acoustic guitars carry the brunt of the musical burden the songs came across as flimsier, thinner. Perhaps it had more to do with where we were standing but the “country” song in the midst of a stretch of brand new material towards the end of the set had guitar that was practically inaudible. Everything seemed to go swimmingly for Martin, however; she was free and easy with her smiles and ended many songs with a flourish of her arms, as if to say, “That’s it. What do you think?” She even giggled openly during one or two songs, apparently a sign that she was happy with the response she was getting. From the looks and reaction from the crowd she has every reason to be.
In perhaps the most unnecessary move of the entire festival, Sunday night MC Fred Penner played a teaser set between Cœur de pirate and Hawksley Workman. Not messing around, the bearded icon reprised Friday’s biggest numbers, “Sandwiches” and “The Cat Came Back,” even slipping a bit of K-Os’ hit “Crabbuckit” into the latter. The somewhat inebriated audience issued several jubilant meows back at him as well, applauding giddily at any given opportunity. Whatever the reason for his sudden resurgence it’s well-deserved and no one can deny it. After imploring us to never lose our youthful exuberance someone in the audience handed Penner a long-stem rose, which he dutifully tucked behind one ear before introducing the night (and the festival’s) final headliner.
I kind of wish Hawksley Workman’s music could always be like it was last night. The flamboyant performer was in fine, albeit vaguely schizophrenic, form. Performing in a pinstriped suit and accompanying hat alongside piano player “Mr. Lonely,” Workman took his time launching into each song, almost as if he was doing a Storytellers episode or something. A series of apparently stream-of-conscious stories and admissions began nearly every song with Workman speaking at length about each one’s origin and cracking a joke a minute. At times it almost seemed like the music was getting in the way of Workman’s stand-up material, as he interrupted himself by talking about his extensive knowledge of The Bob Newhart Show or wondering why someone left half the lights on in the “lightning bolt” (re: SaskPower) building across from the park. At one point he extended the bridge of one song by five or six minutes to explain a sudden vision that he had of inviting the whole audience into his basement to watch him play the drums, closing his eyes and swinging at an imaginary kit for a few minutes. “And maybe I’ve locked the door behind you,” he deadpanned as the entire audience erupted in laughter.
That train of thought was interrupted when “Mr. Lonely” pulled off an intriguing piano run that caught his imagination. Workman strode purposefully over to the electric piano and Lonely slid down the bench, allowing Workman to take over the bass notes while he worked the high end. The two improvised for a few minutes, no words being uttered. Just as impressive was his sudden breaks into heavy metal-esque guitar solos during an otherwise-sparse version of “Jealous Of Your Cigarette” and “Tarantula.”
Of course, his style of performance could only be pulled off by a supremely confident musician and that is Workman to a T. Having played with his sideman on piano for more than a dozen years the two clearly have a close kinship that allows them to follow each other’s musical whims in an almost intuitive way. Workman has a knack for crafting fanciful songs of unyielding beauty, his voice alone driving them into a higher atmosphere. His wild falsetto, while not always necessarily in the right key, is a wonton display of passion, undeniable evidence that he’s simultaneously both lost and present in the moment and the song, whichever one he happens to be in.
With no shortage of passion he brought thousands of festival audience members along with him. It was a scene, man.
After Workman’s electric set Fred Penner emerged from the wings and called out more performers: Shakura S’Aida, The Sojourners, Workman and more came out for a two-song finale that included “This Little Light of Mine” as a closer. Inviting and applauding the volunteers, Penner called for as many of them as possible to take the stage and sing and dance along, which they were more than happy to do. It was a very “folk festival” move, but you wouldn’t have found a person in the crowd that wasn’t lit up with a smile when it happened.
Here’s to next year, Regina!
Hawksley Workman - Warhol's Portrait Of Gretzky: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Coeur de pirate - Berceuse: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download Library Voices - Generation Handclap: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download The Hard Ramblers - Flatland Boogie: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download The Sojourners - Nobody Can Turn Me Around [3:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
