RPGS did Enver ANMeNG Vancouver Folk Festival: Best Show in Town Iain W. Reeve, A&E Editor remember my happy teenage years growing up in the suburban sprawl of Vancouver. Summer meant three things: hours spent at my friend’s house watching movies and jumping on his trampoline, riding rides at Playland till nausea and heat stroke set in, and attend- ing the many big-name music festivals that rolled into the city each year. Well, now I’m all grown up, living in the city, and have been itching to get out to some all-day music extravaganzas where I can enjoy bands I know and experience all- new music. However, many of the music festivals I attended as a youth either no longer exist, or have become lame. I was in a rut over this when a friend of mine asked me if I was going to attend Vancouver Folk Festival. Looking over the diverse, lineup, I quickly jumped on the bandwagon. While there were several acts on the bill whom I had some familiarity with, the real experience of Folk Fest is seeing artists you have never heard of and will likely never hear again. While the Friday- night show only had one stage, the Saturday and Sunday festivities featured seven different stages running six or seven shows per day. That’s a lot of music! I had never been to a festival that allowed the audience such freedom to wander and experience the music. You could spend a 16 | www.theotherpress.ca whole hour watching Irish folk music, or spend half an hour listening to a beat poet before wandering 100 yards to see an Indian sarod player. There was more to it than the music, however. Near a couple of stages was a big line of tents belonging to various groups, including Oxfam and The Tyee, a wicked, organizations and advocacy BC-oriented, online newspaper. Say what- ever you want about the Folk Fest being for hippies, at least it has anti-poverty tents and diverse food options ranging from corn on the cob to falafel. Sure beats the normal slew of merch tents and hot dog stands you find at most music festi- vals. Also, the attempt to run a festival that responsible was admirable. For more on that, check the article by photographer extraordinaire, Kat Code. But enough of this, let’s talk about some of the awesome people who played at the festival: was somewhat environmentally Buck 65 This was one name I was looking forward to and, boy, did he deliver. Hailing from Nova Scotia, the so-called hick-hop artist pulled off a wonderful one-man show that fused all the best parts of blues, blue- grass, rock, folk, and hip hop into one wicked fast and furious package. Add to this the fact that the man is a lyrical genius with diversity and depth that would put any gangsta rapper to shame, and you’ve got one of Canada’s hottest and most imaginative artists. The stories he told between songs were alone worth the price of admission. “I once saw a woman eat an entire bicycle.” Brilliant. Snag his current album Secret House Against the World now. Feist The luscious Miss Lesley Feist has every- thing a confident female artist should have: an entrancing stage presence, the most solid guitar skills ’'ve seen in a female artist in some time, and a voice that is far beyond enchanting. While her stage set was considerably different from the versions found on her mesmerizing album Leg it Die, the three-piece band laid out versions of her songs that were less layered, but engrossing all the same. Certainly an artist worth checking out. K’Naan Hailing from Toronto, but an immigrant from Somalia, K’Naan is not your typical African-Canadian hip-hop artist. While most ate busy spitting out rhymes about wealth, booty, and gettin’ it on, K’Naan is busy laying out a few of the realities of where he grew up. It gives you a little per- spective on the whole “I’m from the ghetto” style of rap when you hear first- hand stories from someone who grew up in a literal war zone. It also makes you realize how contrived and ridiculous most hip hop really is. Fortunately, an impas- sioned performance from one such as K’Naan also reminds you that hip hop can be an amazing form of raw expression that belongs on an equal artistic plane with all other forms of music. His album, The Dusty Foot Philosopher, will leave you speechless. Aditya Verma When I decided to go to this event, I was really hoping I would get a good chance to sample some music from other cul- tures. I was particularly excited when I found out that there was an Indian classi- cal musician. In the 45-minute set, Verma and his tabla player played only two pieces. One was a short piece, attempting to familiarize the audience with Indian musical structure. The other was a much longer piece, over half an hour, demon- strating that structure in its real form. Besides finally getting to see this music played live, I was excited to see someone play a piece of music that was more than 5 minutes long. The tension that builds over such a long piece of music is quite wonderful, especially when it finally ends. Probably the two most skilled musicians at the festival. Collaborations This was, for me, the coolest part of the festival. For four years now, the Folk Fest has attempted not only to jam artists from all different disciplines on stage together in hopes of creating magic, but bring them together for days beforehand to meet, interact, jam, and most importantly, be given time to meld their musical back- grounds into one massive artistic fusion. The results were much more than simple jam tunes, they were coherent and won- derful pieces of music. I was fortunate enough to see two of these. My favourite featured a beat poet, a DJ, a french singer, and Aditya Verma on sarod (along with his tabla player). This type of cross-cul- tural diversity is what folk music is supposed to be about. The lack of mutu- al respect for different forms of music, and a lack of non-commercial integration, is what keeps pop music boring and stat- ic. I would kill for a recording of these performances, but, at the same time, the “one-time only-ness” of them is part of the appeal. August 10/2005