Edmonton Folk Music Festival

For the first weekend in quite some time we stayed home.  Margarit and I had weekend passes to the Edmonton Folk Music Festival.  This year was the 40th Anniversary.  It's rather surprising that I have lived in Edmonton my entire life and never attended this festival before.  It runs for four days starting on Thursday evening and this year there were some well know artists performing.

We didn't bother going on Thursday evening, as the weather was not great, and I was not familiar with any of the scheduled performers.  I gave up my Eskimos tickets on Friday night so that we could go to the festival.  Jason Isbell did the first show on the main stage, followed by Brandi Carlile.  It was cool and overcast, but fortunately it did not rain.

I suppose I am a little jaded by my experiences at the Springfest in East Coulee.  That festival is very small and intimate, and by comparison this one is exponentially bigger and busier.  They estimate that about 25,000 people attended each of the four days.  The experience is really cool as the festival is held on the ski hill at Gallager Park.  It creates sort of a natural amphitheater and the sound quality is exceptionally good.  But you have to get there early in the day to be able to stake out a tarp on the hillside and secure your spot.  Our friends Jon and Marg, who bought the tickets for us had their spot staked out.  It was about halfway up the hill and off to one side a little.  The view of the stage was unobstructed, but it was quite a distance away.  The organizers had several big screens set up so that you could see what was going on, even if you weren't that close.

There were lots of vendors selling food and "stuff".  There was a big beer garden, and several smaller stages.  It was quite the spectacle and a very well attended event.  At first I found the big crowd and the busy conditions, not to mention the mud, a little annoying.  But over the course of the weekend it started to grow on me. 
Margarit and I took the LRT to the UofA campus and there caught a shuttle bus to the festival.  The shows on Friday night were really good, but by the end we were starting to feel pretty chilled.  We made a stop at the pub after getting back to the LRT station and finally got to sleep at about 2:00AM.

I went to work for part of the day on Saturday.  Margarit had to drive Hailey to her job.  Her shift ended at about 6:30 so after Margarit picked her up we repeated the drill and headed back to the festival.  By the time we got there we only had enough time to have a beer and then settle in for the last show of the evening... Blue Rodeo.  We did catch the last couple of songs by Bruce Cockburn just before that.  I've seen Blue Rodeo several times before and they never disappoint.  The venue and the atmosphere made this one pretty cool.  The temperature was a little milder than the night before and neither of us got as chilled.

My brother Greg, sister in law Barb, and our neice and nephew Amelia and Colin were all working as volunteers at the festival for the entire weekend.  We ran into them a couple of times over the course of the weekend.  Several of the guys from my photo group the Monochrome Guild were also working there as photographers and security staff.

On Sunday I headed down to the festival by myself.  Hailey had to work a four hour shift which didn't allow Margarit enough time to get to and from the show.  I checked out Colter Wall on one of the smaller stages.  I have become a huge fan of his over the past year or two.  The experience of the small stage endeared me a lot more to this festival.  I got there about two hours before his show and caught the acts that were playing before him.  As each show ended I was able to move down closer and closer to the stage.  In the set immediately before his there was a workshop that featured Donovan Woods, a girl from Arizona name Courtney Marie Andrews, and Colter Wall all playing solo stuff independently.  A band called Camp was supposed to play with them, but their flight was delayed and the only managed one song.  Once that warpped up I was able to move down to a spot about 30 feet from the stage.  Colter came out and played a great set with his full band.  Jon and Marg wandered over and joined me for the last one.  After  that we headed over to the beer garden and had a couple of drinks.  I hung around long enough to see part of the next couple of acts on the main stage before heading for home.

Margarit met me at the LRT station after the show and we headed over to a pub for a late evening meal together.

I'll probably consider attending the festival again next year, but will focus my attention on the small stages, and only watch the main stage if it is some artist that I really want to see.  All in all a great experience.  But I've had my share of crowds for a while and look forward to getting back out into the mountains soon.