the thing itself and not the myth

…not that I really had one. One three day weekend does not a vacation make. But whatever.

In July I went up to Vancouver for the folk festival. It was my third year attending, and though I missed seeing Julie up on the mainstage interpreting, I had a really great time. I got up there on Friday night when the Weakerthans were on the mainstage, found a spot, and immediately everything felt right with the world.

There are a lot of reasons why I am so fond of the festival. I feel totally safe there; like, I knew Friday night that I could just *leave* everything I had brought with me up to Canada in the middle of thousands of total strangers, and no one would mess with it. I know more people there than I would at a festival in the States, well, any festival other than Falcon Ridge. And of course music-wise, I know that I can take a seat at any stage and it’ll be awesome.

Usually I wind up hearing someone totally new to me early in the day on Saturday, and follow them across as many festival stages as possible throughout the weekend. Last year it was Outlaw Social, and this year it was BFFs Dan Managan and Mark Berube (& the Patriotic Few).

Other acts it was great to see — Iron & Wine, the Proclaimers (who covered “Whole Wide World”. So great!), Patty Larkin, Cheryl Wheeler, and of course I never get tired of seeing Tom Landa and the Paperboys. Their new disc was the only CD I was allowed to buy there, but I’m going to be ordering a few others soon, that is for sure.

Probably the oddest part of the festival had to be seeing Steven Page sans naked Ladies. He didn’t make the festival stage set he had been scheduled for (I heard later that he missed his plane) but he put in a surprise appearance at a Sunday set that ended with a sing-a-long of “The Log Driver’s Waltz“. Pretty awesome.

Coming up on the blog in the next few days: Sock Summit & summer camp. Maybe even some actual knitting, but don’t hold your breath.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 11:26 am and is filed under music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.