From: jonb@Ingres.COM (Jon Berger)
Newsgroups: rec.music.folk
Subject: Re: Vancouver Folk Festival
Date: 28 Jul 92 16:27:05 GMT
Reply-To: jonb@ingres.com
Organization: Ingres, an ASK Company

In article <6=mm16#.greg@netcom.com>, greg@netcom.com (Greg Bullough) writes:
>Gawd, but this sounds grim, and self-righteous and... yuck.
> 
>Then again, there's that which is just offensive and sexist (on the
>surface) such as Saffire.
> 
>Do they have a jam session, or do they just chastise themselves and
>toddle off to bed?

Greg, in his customary forthright way, raises a good point here.
I haven't been to the Vancouver FF for a couple of years, but it's true
that lots of the more, shall we say, politically conscious acts tend to
figure prominently among their headliners.  This has led to some incidents
that can only be described as regrettable, such as the time when Robin
Williamson was booed into silence by a contingent of women who didn't
approve of his song "First Girl I Loved".  It's also, in all fairness,
led to a whole lot of people buying tickets who otherwise wouldn't have,
which in turn may well have led to the festival being able to survive
as long as it has.

It's worth keeping in mind that the number of performers at Vancouver is
huge, bordering on vast, and the Holly Nears and the Brigade Victor Jaras
and so forth are just the ones that make the press releases; the utterly
cool thing about Vancouver is all the great acts you've never heard of.
Last time I was there, they had hired a township-rock type band from
Mali, and they were astonishing, and I'd never even heard of Mali, much
less the kind of music they play there.  They also had this incredible
traditional, totally non-touristy hula group from Hawaii.  I remember one
year when they had the Flying Karamazov Brothers (jugglers, for anyone
who's been living under a rock or something) -- this turned out to be
very handy when the power to the sound system went out for 15 minutes.
I saw La Bouttine Souriante there before anyone had ever heard of them
("Canadian content", it's called).  The list goes on and on.  There's
something for everyone, and whatever kind of music you don't like is
easy to avoid because there's always plenty of whatever kind you do like.

On the other hand, it's interesting that Greg mentions jam sessions.
This may have changed, but my experience has been that the first
few times I went to Vancouver, I brought along an instrument or two,
and after that I didn't bother because I never had occasion to take
them out of their cases.  Vancouver's "workshops" -- that's what they
call them -- are just mini-concerts by groups of performers with some
common feature: fiddlers, singer-songwriters, people who speak French,
like that.  There's a heavily emphasized audience/performer split,
and I can't remember a single occasion where audience participation,
beyond the obligatory "let's all clap along" or "here's where you join
in on the chorus", was encouraged.  I have certainly not been alone in
grousing about this, so, as I say, maybe someone's done something about
it in the last few years.  I sure hope so, because this is the only flaw
I can think of in an otherwise terrific event.  Well, its very hugeness
is kind of a flaw for those of us with borderline claustrophobia, but
I have to concede that that's just the nature of festivals.

Interesting anecdote about the band from Mali, by the way: it seems that
some folks from the festival went to meet them at the airport, and asked,
via an interpreter, if they needed any help carrying their instruments.
A few minutes of confused conversation ensued, after which it emerged
that in Mali, a country beset by near-universal poverty, the concept of
private ownership of instruments is unheard of.  The only instruments
these guys had ever played were owned by the club they performed at, and
it had never occurred to them that things would be different elsewhere.
So, the Festival came through with an advance check and took the band
to a local music store, where they purchased some of the most incredibly
gaudy bright-primary-colored gadget-ridden flying-V electric instruments
I've ever had the pleasure of observing outside the confines of a Judas
Priest concert.  They were obviously having _lots_ of fun by the time
they got around to performing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
   -__ __ /_   Jon Berger              "If you push something hard enough,
  //_// //_/   jonb@ingres.com          it will fall over."
_/ ---------                              - Fudd's First Law of Opposition
Organization: Doctoral student, History, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA