August 2004

»
ES
K _

Kali Thurber
A & E Editor

 

The Vancouver Folk Festival,
which was held July 16, 17 and 18
at Jericho Beach Park, has always
presented an assortment of talent-
ed and passionate musicians over
the 26 years it’s been running, and
this year the show seems to have
spawned an entire community of
musical subgroups under the title
of folk. The massive array of fes-
tivities included the festival debut
Leaky
Heaven Circus, hip hop great
Kinnie Starr with War Party, polit-
ical activist/folk singer Utah
Philips, slam poetry/hill billy
induced hip hop presented by
Tons Of Fun University (TOFU),
and so many more it would be
impossible to list them.

This festival provides a very
innovative and inspiring experi-

of Vancouver’s own

ence to an equally diverse crowd.
Utah Philips expressed it best
when he said, “I regard The
Vancouver Folk Music Festival as
an island of sanity in a rapidly
darkening world of Super-Bowl
Disco madness. Here, for an all-
too-brief time, completely human
in each others’ company, we create
the world as it was intended to

be.”

New Word Order

Hosted by Ivan E. Coyote, a local
writer, storyteller and slam poet,
this lineup of spoken word artists
managed to amuse, depress, and
downright shock the multi-genera-
tional audience before them. Al
Mader’s shaky, Tom Waits-esque
voice growled out his political
angst piece, “It’s makin’ me sick,”
as he alternated between a banjo
and a makeshift, broomstick gui-
tar. Shayne Koyczan did his world-
famous slam about falling in love
with a terminally ill cancer patient

when he was eight. But the most
powerful part of this show was
the chance to watch the artists
prepare themselves, while pre-
tending that the audience couldn’t
see them, before they leapt on
stage with their performance face
on. You won't get to see that at a
concert at the Plaza of Nations.
Barbara Adler spent half an hour
sidestepping and jumping back
and forth, perfecting her stance in
the grass beside the stage before
she went up.

This stage did eventually turn
subtly cheesy, however. After a
drawling piece including every

 

sexual innuendo ever invented,
and Barbara Adler’s, “I’ve been

eating wedding cake for three

weeks,” I found myself wondering
if all art is just a repressed, or
rather, expressed form of love for
oneself. I think Ivan E. Coyote
was on target when he explained,
“without an audience, a poet’s just
a guy talkin’ to himself.”

War Party with Kinnie Starr

Kinnie Starr hosted a war party in
the dead heat of midday. During
this time I discovered by far the
coolest spot at the festival—past
the venders on the beach, under
the pier. Cooling down after
sweating profusely, while being

Arts

The Vancouver Folk Festival:
Folk-Assortment- Turned-Variety-Show Extravaganza

pressed up against the large group
of aspiring slam poets (also
sweaty) did take some time. When
I ventured back out into the sun,
veering towards Kinnie Starr, I
caught the last of what looked like
a great show. But who wants to go
to a war party anyhow?

Just Say No: A collaboration of
Dick Gaughan, Martyn Joseph,
and Odetta, hosted by Utah
Philips

These four singer/songwriters sat
along in a row on the stage circled
with Maple trees and sang their
fiery hearts right out to the crowd.

Photo by Kali Thurber

Though these performers were all
born outside of Canada, it felt like
a truly Canadian experience.
Combined with random, rambling
comments by all (mostly Utah),
the concert turned out to be more
of an interactive hoedown than a
show for one to sit back and
watch. After mumbling that golf
spelled backwards is flog, Utah
Philips said, “we don’t sing
enough together, we get too
caught up in the role of music
consumers.” This prompted the
audience to clap a backbeat along
to every song after that point.
Usually a crowd clapping in uni-
son has disastrous effects. There’s
always at least three tone-deaf

& Entertainment

joiners who mess up the whole
thing by either clapping like a
speed freak, or bumping their
hands together so slowly that they
only meet the audience every five
claps. But there’s something
impressively lovely about a crowd
clapping along while Odetta
moans, “no I ain’t gonna study
wat no more, down by the
tiver,’—speed freak clappers and
comatose-slow clappers and all.

Jorane

With a voice so powerful you actu-
ally have to glance around to be
certain it’s coming out of the tiny
girl on stage, a 21st century cello,
and enough imaginative energy to
fuel a small lighthouse, Jorane is a
powerhouse of French folk.
Jorane sounds like Tori Amos if
Tori took melancholy angst six
levels higher, and oh yes, was
French. As a guilty, monolingual
girl, I had no idea what she was
singing about, but Goddamn, it
was beautiful.

Bruce Cockburn

Bruce Cockburn is one of
Canada’s most talented folk musi-
cians, and this year he appeared on
the main stage after a 26-year
absence. He’s the kind of musi-
cian that kids with hippy parents
remember listening to in the sum-
mertime when they were nine.
That’s why when Bruce Cockburn
got up (cleverly dodging all jokes
made at the expense of the pro-
nunciation of his last name) and
sang, “Lovers in a Dangerous
Time,” I had to leave. It was just
too perfect. There was mention of
a nude synchronized swimming
competition to be held in the har-
bour that tempted me, but some-
times enough is enough.

OtherPress | 19

~~