My first ever Edmonton Folk Music Festival experience

I grew up most of my life in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada which is known to most as festival city. Summer is a buzz with festivals celebrating food, comedy, theatre, music, cars - you name it, Edmonton has it. Despite this plethora of festivals on offer, I have been to relatively few of them which made my trip to the Edmonton Folk Music Festival my first visit ever.

Normally the festival experience starts with colours. People come down for 6 in the morning where they are alloted a number and are grouped with 25 other people. Once the numbers are allocated, one group at a time are allowed to walk (not run or god forbid, skip) down the hill and place their tarp down in front of the main stage. This is then their spot for the the rest of the day.

For me the festival didn't start until well into the evening at stage 6. This is where workshops are on throughout the day. I, being a newbie to this folk festival, was confused why they would have a workshop on a dedicated stage. Were they going to teach us to sing? Should I have brought a guitar?

I soon found out how wrong I was. Workshops are where the festival brings together different artists who are performing throughout the weekend to basically jam. So we had the pleasure of seeing the group dubbed "Talkin' About My Generation" made up of The Waifs, Patrick Watson (without the rest of his group The Wooden Arms), Lucas Chaisson and Kate Reid, take to the stage.

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I have a Waifs CD in my collection so I had a certain sound in mind. But together with this collective, the styles of the musicians blended to become something entirely different. The music was mixed and eclectic, morphing into something new as each of the artists took the lead.

It felt like we were in someone's living room instead of the side of a hill at dusk. At one point, Patrick Watson, who was one of the hosts, asked if anyone wanted a drink. A couple mumbles of yes led him to bring out a bottle of whiskey for them to try much to the delight of the crowd. 

As the session grew to a close, Patrick asked for a random title for a song the group would make up on the spot. The only stipulation was that the title couldn't be one of a song that already exists. A few suggestions were thrown out and "Snakes and Ladders" was chosen. A few of the singers hadn't improvised lyrics before and they found it a bit of a challenge but the crowd was behind them every step of the way as you can hear here:

After sampling the festival food (the Indian food stall was supurb) and watching the latern parade, we joined our friends on the hill by the main stage to catch a bit of Calexaco. I heard them back in May at ATP in Minehead. I wasn't overly impressed by them then but maybe the indoor Butlins venue wasn't the best to hear them in. Out under the stars, their Mexican inspired spread an air of romance over the hill and more than one person in our group commented on how cute the lead singer, Joey Burns, was.

Though I only caught a part of the day, as a first experience, I can see why this is such a popular festival. I'll be back tomorrow to catch the wonderful Sarah Harmer who I've been listening to for the past 9 years or so. Now that I've stuck my toe in, there's no going back.

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