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Over the years I have remained rather meticulous with my ticket binders, obsessively keeping track of each and every band I saw – however briefly – at the many festivals I’ve had the fortune to attend. But when it comes to the festival I love the most (Blue Skies) I almost never kept track the bands that I saw on the mainstage during those many magical weekend-long gatherings, an omission that is unique in my binders.
Not so for the 2007 edition of Blue Skies. For some reason I thought to list the acts I saw that weekend, and comparing the list to that year’s program I see that I wrote them down in order of appearance. So it appears I shunned the main stage altogether on the Friday evening, which is often my habit. Sure, I really should stroll over to the stage a little more often – especially as it is only about eighty yards from where I pitch my tent – but from such a nearby campsite I can always hear the music quite perfectly, plus my campsite is about eighty yards closer to my cooler than is the concert pitch.
And really, in an overall sense my musical focus at Blue Skies has generally leaned more towards the campfire jams than the mainstage acts. Sure, there’s always great bands on the mainstage but man, there is some real magic that happens around those campfires…like, magic. But then, magic is nearly inevitable when you find a lute player, a doublebass player and a hurdy-gurdy grinding away on a slowed-down low-key Pat Benatar hit at 1am. And the mainstage players always end up around one campfire or another anyway so you get the best of both worlds. Plus there’s fire.
According to the program, on Saturday I enjoyed several bands while munching hot dogs and sipping frosties from my camp chair – including Old Man Luedecke and the wonderful old-timey fiddle music of Ball & Chain and the Wreckers – before finally heading down to the mainstage. There I caught the last few songs of a Trinidadian Calypso band called Kobotown before taking in much of groovy, funky Mr. Something Something, marking one of the few times Blue Skies had booked a band that I had actually heard of. And then by midnight I was back to dragging my guitar around to the campfires.
When I woke up on August 5th – a witting victim of the ever-cute and over-loud Sunday morning children’s noise/costume parade/wake-up call – I made the rounds at the workshops: Meditation & Music in the Tipi,Taoist Tai Chi in the Meadow, Didgeridoo: Exploring an Ancient Sound at the Hilltop, Bring Out Your Songs in the Swamp, and my favourite: Bass Symposium, and not only because it took place within a dozen feet of my campsite/cooler in the Finger; I do love the bottom end.
Then, after a few hours of respite (that would have included much lunching and snacking, lots of beersing, and doubtlessly watching the square dance that gets called from the mainstage every Sunday afternoon*) I headed down to the mainstage for an uncharacteristically long night, catching all of the final four acts (Dya Singh, Jim Bryson**, Jayme Stone Quartet with Mansa Sissoko, and Treasa Levasseur) and of course I stuck around for Magoo’s ever-touching annual festival finale farewell, during which he encourages the crowd to pack up the magical Blue Skies vibe along with the rest of our gear in the morning and to take that feeling back home with us and spread it around our communities via smiles and kindness. I love the Magoo sendoff and no matter how many times I’ve heard it I make a point of ambling over to the mainstage field – if only to the periphery – to hear it again every single time. I don’t know what they pay Magoo to MC the weekend but whatever it is they get their money’s worth.
But no matter how much I dig Magoo’s banter I’m always itching for him to wrap it so that – you guessed it – the campfire jams could get started again. And there would go the rest of my consciousness.
Curiously, though I included the names of the bands I saw at Blue Skies on the little paper accompanying this ticket stub (and what a nice stub it is!) I didn’t include the name(s) of the person(s) I went with, which is unheard of amongst my little ticket-notes. I initially concluded that I had gone alone, which by no means means that I was alone, for my regular camping area in the Finger has always been consistently populated by a large smattering of good friends. From day one it has been impossible for me to be alone at Blue Skies.
No wonder I love it so.
But no, I didn’t go alone! A little research around the dinner table confirms that this had been m’lady’s first of several Blue Skieses. No wonder I love her so.
*Of course I’ve never taken part in the annual Blue Skies square dance – to even imagine doing so appalls me – but man, I love to watch it.
**Another rare Blue Skies booking of a name that was already familiar to me. Even if it was literally just his name that was familiar.
Todd Man Out 