Posted by On July 13th I drove m’lady and I into town for an extremely pleasant evening of music at the NL Folk Festival.
Anticipating a large crowd, we shunned the venue itself and drove straight to Duckworth Street. We found parking in one of the supercool EV-dedicated spots and grabbed a patio burger before walking up the hill to Bannerman Park, arriving just in time for the third act on the evening’s bill: Bagashree Vaze Ensemble. As we searched the lawnchair-ridden field for a place to plant our blanket I assumed it was Mo Kenney that we were peripherally listening to (they was the second act) but once we found a spot and sat down upon said blanket I quickly realized that I was mistaken.
My brief research into Bagashree Vaze had told me that she was an award-winning Indian dancer so I was expecting more of a choreographed visual thing from her set. So much so that I had wondered if the group would include live musicians at all or just be canned background music – but nope, Bagashree Vaze Ensemble is a full-on band playing Western pop music tinged with a distinct Indian flavour that made it really, really good.
With the central seating area completely full of lawnchairs only the areas off to either side remained for we blanket-people. That left a row of pesky trees to deal with but we ended up with half-decent sightlines of the stage for Bagashree Vaze and the next act, Duane Andrews and the Hot Club of Conception Bay, whom I had coincidentally seen for the first time exactly one year earlier, to the day.
Duane is a really great swing jazz guitar player who lives in Carbonear, just up the road from where I live. It’s not like I’ve ever seen him at the grocery store or anything, ‘but then I’ve heard that he spends a lot of his time in Portugal. Wherever he lives, he most certainly spends an awful lot of time practising because like I say, he’s great at that Django stuff, and that Django stuff ain’t easy, no matter how many fingers you might have*.
The Hot Club (which includes Duane’s son on bass) had expanded to include a second guitarist, and they put in a great set. Several Django songs and even a reel or two, and all of it played impeccably. I like ‘em.
By the time Steve Earle stepped onstage our sightlines had been crushed by the thickening crowds that began gathering along the paths but no matter, m’lady and I were happy to stand up. Steve was playing solo which surprised me for a moment until I realized that was probably how the festival could afford to bring him.
He opened with, was it Guitar Town? and then went right into Devil’s Right Hand. By the time he hit I Ain’t Ever Satisfied I was reminded that Steve was no one-hit wonder. Far from it; dude has tons of songs. Which is pretty obvious when one thinks of all the people who have covered his materiel. People like Johnny Cash, Bob Seger, Willie Nelson, and Emmylou Harris of course, who was headlining the evening. Emmylou came out and joined Steve for a song midset, which was quite a treat, if somewhat underwhelming. When Steve’s guitar tech eventually handed him a mandolin I leaned into m’lady and said, “I guess Copperhead Road is next,” but I was wrong. Because whattya know, the guy has another hit song that leans heavily on the tiny eight-string, The Galway Girl.
Then it was time for his closer, which was indeed Copperhead Road. Hearing the song played on solo mandolin pointed out two things to me: 1) there’s not really a whole lot going on in the song musically, and 2) the original arrangement is fantastic (in that it effortlessly masks how empty the song actually is).
It was a pretty short set, maybe forty minutes, and it made me wonder how much he got paid for it. $20,000? $30,000? Regardless, it’s a good payday for a guy after a very, very storied career.
Then it was time for Emmylou Harris. The festival had taking a big risk with the lineup, shooting for the sky and bringing in big-name talent and charging big-time ticket prices (I think the tickets were around $160 for the night). And it seemed to have worked. The crowd was easily four or five times as big as our last time attending the fest and the beer lines circled the park**.
Emmylou Harris was fantastic, of course. She had a great band with her and she was just so, so professional. I don’t know any of her material and I soon discovered why. While singing Steve Earle’s praises, Emmylou mentioned that she almost never writes her own songs, and she highlighted this fact by playing just one of her own compositions during the set. I found it rather odd that Emmylou is kind of like Joe Cocker in that way, because she doesn’t sound that blatantly identifiable (like Joe Cocker is/was), but I guess she is.
And like I say: she put in a great set. Especially cool was when she played Sonny’s Dream by Newfoundland’s greatest songwriter of all time: the amazing Ron Hynes. I thought it was a poignant and special tip of the hat to us here on the island, but the band sounded so slick that I figured the song must be just a part of her regular set and looking on the internet I see that I was right about that. Still cool hearing Ron’s biggest song being performed so well in front of such a large Newfoundland crowd.
Also rather special (and this one was unique to Emmylou’s St. John’s show) was having Steve Earle join the band and take centre stage for the encore with one of his own songs called Pilgrim. Emmylou actually started tearing up when she dedicated the song to the recently departed Mary Martin, a Canadian music exec who counted among her feats introducing Bob Dylan to The Band and discovering Leonard Cohen.
Great show. Good work, NL Folkfest. I hope you made oodles of money so you can outdo yourself again next year.
*For those hearing about Django Reinhardt for the first time: the greatest Gypsy jazz player of them all, the granddaddy of the genre and the man who’s name is synonymous with the style only had two working fingers on his fretting hand. Yeah, you read that right. When you hear him play you will think I am lying but I’m not. It’s insane.
**This was the first year that alcohol was allowed to be consumed throughout the park. Previously beer was only available within a small licensed beer garden hidden and fenced off to the side, which seemed silly.
Todd Man Out 