Saturday started with a workshop called "Ether Ore" which featured four incredibly talented artists: Braids, The Weather Station, Jenny Scheinman, and Emilie & Ogden. Emilie & Ogden kicked off the show. Emilie is a singer/songwriter from Montreal and Ogden is the name of her harp. Her voice was beautiful and went perfectly with the sounds of the harp. I immediately decided to catch her solo show later to hear more. Next up was Jenny Scheinman on the fiddle who got everyone stomping along. The Weather Station then played a gorgeous acoustic song and Braids ended the first round with a stripped down version of "Mini skirt". Raphaelle has such a powerful unique voice that is incredible live. This sequence then repeated several times and the stage was filled with so much beautiful music. I wish the band would have collaborated a little more but Jenny's fiddle was an excellent accompaniment to every song and Raphaelle did some lovely background vocals on a few songs too. By the end I felt I had already gotten my moneys worth and it was only 11:30am.
Next I headed over to the beer garden stage to see Adia Victoria. She is one of the artists I had been most looking forward to seeing. Her rough voice and heavy hitting electric guitar songs were a powerful combo. She kicked it off with the rockin hit "Dead in the Eyes" that sure got everyone's attention. After a particularly dark song she said "that one's about being a girl and a teenager" to which everyone laughed and then she added with a smirk "it ain't all Taylor Swift yo". She spoke of growing up in the south of the U.S. and feeling like she didn't belong until she discovered blues music. She was truly a force to be reckoned with and it was an awesome show.
Later in the afternoon I caught the Emilie & Ogden set and made sure to sit right in front for a great view of Emilie's hands on the harp. I've never seen anyone play the harp before and was truly fascinated. I loved the simple beauty of just Emilie's voice and the harp, however I was pleasantly surprised at how well the guitar and drums fit into her music when they kicked in halfway through a song making it even more epic. I will definitely be listening to her debut record 10,000 a lot and hoping that she comes back to Calgary.
After that was a wicked workshop with The Dudes, Bobby Bare Jr., Foy Vance, and Bry Webb. This set was full of collaborations and covers. I must say Bobby Bare Jr and Foy Vance really stood out as incredible musicians and it was so much fun to watch everybody jamming together and taking turns with the solos. My favourite moment was when Bobby led the group in singing a cover of "Come on feel the noise".
After this show I dashed off to a different stage to see the Aussie duo - Oh Pep! I've had their album on repeat for the last few days and it's so friggin infectious and good that I was having a hard time listening to any other folk fest artists in festival preperation - so you could say i was pretty excited for this one. They sounded even better live and looked like they were having such a great time on stage that I'm pretty sure I was smiling the entire time. Olivia sings and plays acoustic guitar while Pepita plays mandolin and sometimes violin. They met in classical music high school - and here they are six years later. They also happened to be doing a signing after so I picked up one of the last copies of their record "Stadium Cake" from the merch tent and went full blown fan girl over to the autograph table to meet them. There were super nice and I tried not to make a fool of myself telling them how much I love their album. It was the first time I've ever gotten anything signed by a band. :)
I then headed over to the main stage where I caught the tail end of The Sadies performance followed by James "Blood" Ulmer playing some blues. Next was Bonnie Prince Billy - he played a lot of slow feel good music. He described his lyrics at one point as "fortune cookie lyrics" and it made sense because they are little snippets of life advice and guidance surrounded by beautiful warm sounds. There were lots of kids dancing and playing in the green space in front of me and watching them in their youthful bliss while listening to Bonnie Prince Billy's wise words about life was pretty surreal. Kathleen Edwards was up next but I decided I'd rather catch Braids again so headed to the other stage. Before beginning, Raphaelle accidentally announced to the audience that she had to pee. She didn't realize the mic was one and had a good hearty laugh. She is probably one of the most likeable, humble, and cheerful front women ever. I ended a wonderful day to the sounds of Braids' acoustic/electric music as the sun set behind the poplars.
Sunday morning started bright an early with Amelie Patterson from Banff. Her debut album Roll Honey Roll is pretty awesome and she did not disappoint live - her band was awesome too. She opened with my favourite song "Tic Tac Blues". She was also adorable and humble talking about how nervous/excited/grateful she was to be playing folk fest and how she couldn't believe she got to go backstage with the "real" musicians.
The next workshop I went to was called "The Spirit Moves" and it was an amazing Sunday morning gospel session. The bands present were Bros Landreth, The Steel Wheels, Colleen Rennison (of No Sinner), and Kristi Rose & Fats Kaplin. The Bros Landreth from Winnipeg kicked things off with a beautiful song from the "gospel of ex-girlfriends". They are super talented musicians that I made me want to listen to more of their music. The steel wheels next did an accapella song that felt like something straight outta church and then Kristi Rose stole the show with her incredibly powerful soul vocals singing about the good news with the extremely talented violin/fiddle player Fats Kaplin. Colleen Rennison then sang a blues song that got everyone really jamming together. She has a great voice too. It was such unreal session and by the end people were clapping and literally raising their hands up in the air as if to praise the folk gods for giving us this moment with incredible musicians.
After catching the end of a workshop full of bands from the UK, I watched Kacy & Clayton's set. Clayton always plays in Deep Dark Woods who I love so I figured it would be good to check out his new project. Turns out Kacy is his cousin and has a beautiful voice that fits well with his guitar style. Their song "Strange Country" was my favourite and reminded me a bit of a Katie Herzig song.
Sunday afternoon I saw the absolute best workshop of the weekend. It was The Weber Brothers, Lisa Leblanc, Cecile Doo-Kingue, and The Dudes. The Weber Brothers are a high energy rock n roll band complete with a stand up bass and turntables and they really started off the workshop strong. Then Lisa Leblanc played an incredibly fast banjo song that made everybody on stage go wild. Cecile Doo-Kingue of Montreal then brought in some funky blues music and epic guitar skills. The Dudes' frontman decided he couldn't possibly "out-rock" Cecile so he played a beautiful slower Dudes song. The workshop was full of epic solo after epic solo. There was even a two-person stand up bass slapping solo and Lisa Leblanc even did the cutest solo with the triangle! Cecile started a Prince/Bowie tribute with "You Don't Have To Be Rich" blending into "Let's Dance" which was phenomenal and the Weber Brothers ended the set by initiating "Stand By Me" to which the entire audience sand along and eagerly jumped up as it ended in a standing ovation. These are the kind of musical collaboration moments I live for.
I headed over to the main stage early so that I could get a good seat for Cat Power. An Ethiopian band called Krar Collective were on the stage and they had some cool instruments that made them really fun to watch. The lead singer also changed her outfit four times throughout their set! And then...the moment I had been waiting for all weekend...Cat Power.
Chan Marshall walked on stage to a roaring applause alone with her guitar. She had two microphones standing in front of her and I'm pretty sure one of them had some sort of auto-tune going on which I was not a fan of because her voice is so incredible she is the last person who needs auto-tune! To my relief though she only used this mic for a few guitar songs and then she sat down at the piano. She played Colours & The Kids (nearly crying) which is one of my all-time favourites that she didn't play when I saw her in Vancouver last year, and then she went right into Maybe Not - my actual favourite Cat Power song that she also didn't play last time I saw her. I nearly lost my mind I was so happy and moved. Then, as if it could not possibly get better she started playing The Greatest and then I Don't Blame You which are also in my top..7 favourites by her. I actually put my sunglasses on at this point because I could feel tears welling up and was afraid I might cry it was so beautiful. She later went back to the guitar (but ditched that weird second mic) and played Good Woman and The Moon (two more favourites she left out last time) and they sounded so great live with the evening sun low in the sky and the breeze rustling the leaves in the trees on either side of the stage. Chan doesn't smile a lot when she performs but as the audience went wild at the end of her set she was absolutely beaming and blowing kissess to the audience. For the second time I felt so lucky to have witnessed this incredibly talented music goddess pour out her soul for us mere humans.
I left a happy girl with a full heart from a perfect day in the park listening to music.
