vintage

Let’s hear it for the Calgary Folk Music Festival! Faced with an eleventh-hour cancellation by tonight’s headliner Michael Franti, who was suffering a ruptured appendix (and apparently was heading for surgery this evening), the festival went on remarkably smoothly. Iron & Wine, the second-to-last act of the evening, was bumped up to the prime slot and Toronto’s Woodchoppers Association, founded by original Rheostatics drummer Dave Clark, was brought in to fill the gap. It went off without a hitch, except for a few disgruntled Spearhead fans’ complaints, but nobody can really fault Franti for not being able to play.

I missed the first act, Los Misioneros del Norte, but I made sure I was back at home base for one of my most loved musicians these days, Justin Rutledge. He graced us with a bunch of gooders from Man Descending (including “St. Peter” and “Greenwich Time,” two of my favourites!) as well as “The Suffering of Pepe O’Malley, Pt III” and “Lay Me Down Sweet Jesus” from No Never Alone. It was curiously satisfying to see the latter at the folk festival, because although I’ve seen him perform it a few times, the first time I ever heard the song was when legendary Canadian blues guy Jim Byrnes covered it at the festival in 2007. Ah, the circle!

Greatly enjoyed the fusion stylings of Umalali as well — what a groove! — and the Woodchoppers really upped the ante with their genre-bending, joyful mayhem on stage. (Not bad for a last-minute mainstage addition.) And of course, Iron & Wine … I can only imagine how intimidating it must be to be on a stage that enormous by oneself, let alone perform with such a casual, familiar attitude. Perhaps it’s just the atmosphere of the festival itself. At one point, the crowd cheered and yelled after a particular song and he quipped “Is this a Canadian riot?” Oh, very funny. Welcome to the land north of the 49th.

I’ll keep this brief, but before I sign off I wanted to point out something awesome: Glen Campbell’s latest record, Meet Glen Campbell (released August 2008). He’s a mainstage act on Saturday night, and I’ve heard many an interesting tidbit about this record, so I investigated. Well, not only is it an album full of covers, but the list of artists whose songs he borrows is pretty incredible: Travis, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Foo Fighters, Jackson Browne, The Replacements, U2, Velvet Underground, Green Day, and John Lennon. Yeah — Glen Campbell covers “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)”, that song that’s been played at every high school grad since 1997. And I really want to hear him do Tom Petty and Jackson Browne. It could be awful, a product of an old star trying to connect with the whippersnappers, but I have a feeling that it’s probably awesome. I mean, “Wichita Lineman”. Do I have to continue?

I’ll try to check in daily to let you know how things are going, but it’ll be a quick turnaround between night and morning for the next two days, so updates might be scarce. You can always check out my Twitter, though — I’ll be updating “from the field” every day. And if that’s not enough, the Twitter hashtag #cfmf will provide you with posts from all folk festival Tweeters using the tag!

See you tomorrow — Bell Orchestre, Gomez, Akron/Family, Chad VanGaalen, and the Decemberists (!!!), and more besides. Whew!