There are some things you can count on seeing every year at the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Folk Music Festival (July 13-15 at Jericho Beach Park).
Women and sometimes men twirling hula-hoops. Interpretive dancing. Grey-haired men with ponytails. Tie-dyed T-shirts and Birkenstocks. Moms and dads pushing strollers. At least one Grateful Dead sticker.
In recent years, the annual festival now in its 35th year has even made room for a beer garden, to accommodate those of us armchair revolutionaries who appreciate a libation with our songs of oppression, protest and reform.
Most importantly, you can also count on a wide variety of acts.
This year, headliners vary from Lucinda Williams (American roots/country/blues/rock) to Hey Rosetta! (East Coast rock) to KNAAN (rock/rap/World).
Artists at the fest come from as near as East Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»(Veda Hille whom, along with the Memory Choir, will present a set of songs based around peoples memories of the festival) and as far away as Tunisia (activist/singer Emel Mathlouthi).
There are sounds to discover (Malian singer/songwriter Sidi Touré, the Turkish dub of Minor Empire) and rediscover (Canadian troubadour Murray McLauchlan). Some acts will fill the stage with their bodies (the New Jersey octet River City Extension) and others will fill it with their presence (Welsh singer/songwriter Martyn Joseph).
Besides the mainstage shows every evening, Saturday and Sunday are filled with individual sets along with that folk festival staple, the workshop.
The workshop, in case youve never been to a folk music festival, is where artists usually like-minded, but occasionally united by nothing more than an area code or an instrument come together to share songs, tell stories and generally behave in a just-plain-folks manner.
This year, workshop highlights include songwriter showcases such as Avant Bards (Veda Hille, Amelia Curran, Royal Wood) and Tailored to Fit (Dan Mangan, Mark Berube, Wake Owl) and an African music gathering, Scatterlings of Africa (the Johnny Clegg Band, Wazimbo), all on Saturday.
On Sunday, you can catch headliner Ani DiFranco share a stage with folk legend Ramblin Jack Elliott in This is What Solidarity Sounds Like. In I-5 Meets the 99, two Seattle bands, The Head and the Heart and the Cave Singers, will trade tunes with local acts Dan Mangan and e.s.l.
Keep in mind, some of these workshops are first thing (10am) in the morning. But then, folk music fans generally subsist on a diet of granola and Happy Planet, so getting up early should be no problem. Right?
For full Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Folk Music Festival listings, visit the festivals site: TheFestival.bc.ca/.
