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It was under the bluest of skies that I rode to the Ottawa Folk Festival on August 26th, 2011, arriving onsite near the end of rush hour without having to deal with an inch of traffic.
This was the year that the festival had moved to their new temporary location in Hog’s Back Park and I really dug it there. I loved that the bike path led literally right up to the ticket booth, the free bicycle valet service, and the entrance. The Folk Festival was pushing towards being a Green festival and they were encouraging people to arrive at Hog’s Back under their own power and of course I was only too happy to comply.
I arrived onsite early enough to catch the first act of the day, a Celtic chamber music outfit called the Bb Sisters*. It was beautiful wallpaper music for a stroll around the pretty grounds. Every area of the festival site was ringed with columns of trees giving a real fest-in-the-forest feel to the place. There was lots of space whether you were looking for sun or shade, and the lawn was perfectly manicured and great for sitting on no matter where you found yourself.
When the music changed I found myself listening to City and Colour hang dissonance in the air with a stark fuzziness that was almost Floyd-esque. Former Alexisonfire frontman Dallas Green** showed off his fine vocal skills and clever songwriting style for the next ninety minutes, arcing his set from driving rockers to more poignant moments like when he ushered his band to the sidelines and performed Comin’ Home alone on stage.
Next I was off to the natural bowl that was the Ravenlaw Stage – the absolute gem of the site – where I joined a gaggle of friends for the end of Garland Jeffreys’ set. Sticking to the acoustic guitar and accompanied only by an electric guitarist, the 68-year-old New York legend closed his show with his international hit Matador and an extended rant through his cover of 96 Tears by punk pioneers ? & The Mysterians, an endless two-chord romp that saw Jeffreys wade into the enthusiastic audience screaming into his microphone and promising to be back in Ottawa as soon as finances would allow. When the MC took the stage following his set she had a hard time getting Jeffries off the stage, he was enjoying himself so much.
Back at the main stage the evening’s headliner had pulled out a huge crowd and when Steve Earle & The Dukes (and Duchesses) hit the stage that manicured field was completely packed. Bearded and looking healthy, Earle opened with Waitin’ On The Sky in front of a band that was the very definition of roots music. With fiddles, pedal steel guitar, mandolins and even a bazouki onstage, the songwriting superhero had cobbled together a band with enough twang to tear your heart out at will.
With strong, honest lyrics that are never frivolous and a stubborn stance on environmental justice, only Steve Earle could mention NAFTA, mad cow disease, and the ever-emerging immigration issue in a single song introduction and still leave the crowd clamouring for more.
Near the end of the show the burly singer brought out the guitar he used in his role on the New Orleans-based tv drama Treme. “It isn’t an old guitar,” he joked, “it just plays one on television.” Lamenting the damage of Hurricane Katrina, Earle performed a song he wrote for the show, This City (“This city won’t wash away/This city won’t ever drown”) before closing his set with a plodding, mumbled version of his sole bona-fide hit Copperhead Road.
Kicking off the multi-song encore with his definitive version of Devil’s Right Hand by the great Johnny Cash followed by Dylan’s It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry before closing the concert with another of his own songs, Steve Earle finished off a perfect night before a sated crowd, myself included.
And though the music was all so very great, the slow leafy bike ride home beneath a canopy of warm summer stars might have been the highlight of the evening.
*Do people need to be told that “Bb” is a note from the chromatic scale that is enharmonically equivalent to A#? It is pronounced “B-flat”, not “double-B”. I honestly can’t tell if this fact is quite obvious or if I’ve simply been conditioned to always see it that way.
**Get it?!?! City and Colour…Dallas Green…city and colour…Dallas and green…
I sure didn’t; someone had to tell me.
Todd Man Out 