3 Music Festivals August Long Weekend
The
region was most definitely alive with sounds of music this past
weekend and music lovers had the luxury of choosing from a number of
high quality events.
Flinton jamboree
by Julie Druker
The
Blue River Band of Kingston, one of many local bands that performed
at the Flinton Country Bluegrass Jamboree on Saturday
The
5th
annual Flinton Country Bluegrass Jamboree took place from July 31 to
August 2 on the grounds of the Flinton Recreation Centre and was
bigger than ever, with close to 300 trailers camping on site, 235
more than their first year.
A
no-fuss, no-muss music event, the stage was comprised of an
open-sided transport truck that straddled home plate at the Flinton
ball diamond. Show goers set up their folding chairs on the infield
and a big top tent provided shade for those in need. A folding chair,
and an umbrella for shade were the bare essentials at this event; the
Flinton Recreation Club took care of everything else, including food
with a full canteen menu.
Harold
Bonner of Valley Heritage Radio station CJHR emceed. The talent
included a wide range of local and from-away bands. Young local
talent also had their time to shine on Friday night. Singer Dallas
Arney wowed the crowd with her original songs and is a bright country
singing star definitely on the rise.
When
I arrived midday on Saturday the sun was high and Neon Blue, a
traditional new country band from Bancroft, was just wrapping up a
fast and furious 45 minute set that included classics like CCR’s
“Old Cotton Fields Back Home” and George Strait’s “Amarillo
by Morning”. The band’s original song “Katie” won inclusion
in the recent Moosetrax compilation CD. Another original song “Thank
God for the Simple Man” made the gospel charts in the States.
Band
member Dale Doney, who plays rhythm guitar in the band, loves the
Flinton venue; it’s their second time playing here. “It’s a
great crowd, not rowdy and there is a really nice family atmosphere
here.”
The
band New Frontier took to the stage next and lead singer Brian Cosby
from Sterling nailed a number of Hank Williams classics, including
“Cold Cold Heart”.
Duane
Thibault, president of the Flinton Rec Club, said that Steve Piticco
and his band South Mountain were a huge draw this year. Well known as
one of the foremost Canadian telecaster players around, Steve Piticco
has played on almost every country album produced in Canada and has
won numerous awards both here and abroad. No doubt he had the
undivided attention of the Flinton crowd most of Saturday night.
Wayne
Brown was the winner of the raffle for the recital fiddle donated by
Murray's Music of Northbrook and the Flinton Recreation Club.
Proceeds from the raffle were donated to the Lennox and Addington
County's EMS Ambulance Service.
Canadian Guitar Festival
by Julie Druker
The
Sebastien Cloutier Band from Trois Rivieres, QC, rocked hard at the
5th
Annual Canadian Guitar Festival held at its new permanent home at the
Loughborough Lake Holiday Park
South of Sydenham, the 5th
Annual Canadian Guitar Festival was held for the first time at
Loughborough Lake Holiday Campground. Organizer Del Vezeau
co-presented the three-day event with Rob Poland of CandyRat Records
and it looks as though this high calibre festival, which offers an
array of guitar aficionados playing in a wide variety of styles, has
finally found its permanent home.
Completed
just days before the event began on Friday was a 80x120 foot super
structure that allowed the event to take place under cover.
Well-known
and revered Canadian singer/songwriter and guitar legend Don Ross
made his regular Friday night appearance. Saturday night performances
by Richard Smith, who plays Chet Atkins style guitar, and Gareth
Pearson from Wales, who did a reworking of a popular Prince song,
received standing ovations.
On
Sunday, 19 competitors, some from as far away as Philadelphia and
Hawaii, entered the finger-style guitar competition. Ewan Dobson of
Toronto won first place and will be heading to Kansas for the
International Competition to be held there later this year.
Don
Alder, another award-winning guitar player from Vancouver, held a
Sunday workshop and displayed his unique finger-stylings. He was
inundated with questions from up-and-coming players.
Later
that evening, Sebastien Cloutier and his band from Trois Rivieres
unleashed a set of heavy guitar rock onto the crowd. They were
followed by Antoine Dufour, also of Quebec, who mellowed things out
with his acoustic set accompanied by violin.
According
to Del, the last five festivals have proven to him that this
one-and-only national guitar festival is catching on and is
definitely here to stay.
Meanwhile
at Blue Skies in Clarendon…..
Vancouver performers rock Blue Skies.
By Jeff Green
Vancouver based musicicians, Delhi to Dublin perform onstage at Blue Skies“I think we saw a bit
of a change this weekend,” said perennial Blue Skies MC Magoo
(Bruce Macgregor) on the day after the 36th annual
festival ended.
That change came in
programming. Joel Leblanc, in his first year as artistic director of
the wildly popular festival (the right to purchase camping passes is
won in a mail-in lottery) programmed the festival with as many
performers in their early 20s as those in their 40s and 50s.
For the audience, which
is as multi-generational as can be found in any public event,
anywhere, the 15 to 30-year-old set became a mainstream target of the
music programming.
“I was talking to Roger
James [a popular veteran Kingston-based performer who attends and
performs at the Festival] and he said these kids are as good today
as we thought we were 35 years ago. But we weren't really that good,”
Magoo said as he introduced Gareth Pearson, a 20-year-old finger
style guitarist from Wales who had been hustled up to Clarendon after
performing at the Guitar Festival the night before.
Not only did Pearson play
at breakneck speed, he leapt about the front of the stage, and danced
to his interpretation of Michael Jackson’s Billie Jean, although he
did not do the moon walk. His three-song set was extended to four,
and he received two standing ovations from the Saturday night crowd.
The youth movement began
earlier in the festival with the band O'Darlin' on Friday night and
the Abrams Brothers, who did the Saturday afternoon show.
But the two performances
that epitomized the youth movement were the Vancouver-based Delhi to
Dublin on Friday evening and C.R Avery, who closed the festival on
Sunday night.
Delhi to Dublin, as the
name suggests, describes their music as “electro-acoustic
celto-punjabi fusion, with touches of reggae, break beat, drum ‘n
bass and hip hop.”
The ethnically diverse
band members did more than play dance music; they were constantly on
the move, in a performance style that at times seemed to verge on
reckless abandon, but inevitably led to some entertaining
synchronized dance. It all served to whip up the audience, young and
old.
The band has a hidden
goal, however, according to their website - “total global
domination. Bouncy banghra leprechauns everywhere.”
After exerting their
domination over the Blue Skies community, they immediately flew off
to Eugene, Oregon, for a gig the following night.
Two days later, as the
festival was winding down, poet C.R. Avery performed with the help of
a five-piece band, featuring two fiddles, electric bass, percussion
and guitar.
It's hard to characterize
what C.R. Avery does, because in some ways he is a throwback to beat
poets of the '50s, but he also borrows a lot from hip hop rhythms,
and provides his own musical element with beat box rhythms
interspersed with harmonica.
The accompanying music
ranged from atmospheric background to the spoken word content, to
frantic rhythms and screaming guitars. The content of his performance
art, which was at times political, at times topical, and at times
crude, was uniformly inventive and energetic.
He performed several
pieces that are part of the show he has been developing during his
summer tour with these musicians, but he left a lot of room for
improvisation.
He included a piece about
the festival itself after arriving on Friday, and captured in a few
minutes much of the nuances of the 36-year-old event, boasting about
swimming in the Mississippi River, and “jumping off the Mississippi
bridge.”
Avery promised that he
would end the festival with a blast instead of winding it down, and
he delivered.
Other highlights
included: Nova Scotia's Matt Anderson, Toronto blues man Jack
Dekeyzer, and Les Temps Dantan from La Belle Province.
