CANMORE – As the annual Canmore Folk Music Festival approaches, musicians are preparing themselves to take the stage – some for the very first time and for others it is a return to the stage of the longest running music festival in Alberta.
For Gabriel Campagne, lead singer of Les Barricades and long-standing musician Connie Kaldor, returning to the folk festival is more like a family reunion.
The two are mother and son, along with Gabriel's brother Aleksi Campagne, the family has spent much of their lives touring the country from coast-to-coast, hitting almost every major folk festival.
“I’ve definitely been to the Canmore Folk Festival as a child," Gabriel said. "My parents are folk musicians and they’ve performed at the Canmore Folk Music Festival many times in the past and so I have definitely been there, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually performed there."
For this year’s folk fest, Gabriel won’t just be attending the event. Following in the steps of his parents, he will be performing on the main stage with his band, Les Barricades.
Les Barricades is a Montreal-based group and along with Gabriel, the band is comprised of Aaron Dolman, Zach Bachand and Stéphane Krims. Les Barricades released its debut album, Full-Pin earlier this month.
“This album has really caught a lot more of the songs that are more sort of punk, sort of more hardcore if you will. You can definitely see more of that early stuff in the new songs, but there’s this whole other spectrum of sound that’s in it that I think is really exciting,” Gabriel said.
He likes to say the band was “born on the Trans-Canada Highway and steamed in Montreal’s musical espresso pot.”
“I’ve gotten the sort of taste of Canada from the extremely isolated and rural to the extremely cosmopolitan and multicultural," Gabriel said. "So I sort of feel like the point of views that influence my style and my music aren’t just born of Montreal, they really are sort of born on the Trans-Canadian Highway, across the country, but then filtered through this cultural lens, this multi-cultural pastiche that is Montreal."
While Gabriel will be performing with Les Barricades for the first time, Kaldor will be returning to the festival. On stage, she will be joined by both Gabriel and Aleksi, as well as her husband Paul Campagne.
With over 40 years in the Canadian folk industry, Kaldor has recorded 15 albums, won three Juno awards and is also the first song writer to win the Western Literature award.
She travelled all throughout the festival circuit with her career, but one of the first festivals she ever performed at was the inaugural Canmore Folk Music Festival 42 years ago.
“One of the very first folk festivals I played in that summer was Canmore, their very first festival,” said Kaldor.
“I think they showed me the contract the other day – I [was] paid a hundred dollars, which seemed like a lot for me at this point, it was on a flatbed truck, on the back of a flatbed truck in the park. That was their festival.”
Back then, Kaldor was just starting out, but over the course of her career she would find herself coming back to Canmore time and time again. For Kaldor, it became more than just a music festival.
“It was one of the first ones that ever hired me. It was also one of the ones where I was falling in love with my husband and now I’m bringing my sons. I used to come back and my sons like loved the climbing wall that was there,” Kaldor said.
Although Kaldor mentioned that waiting in line for the climbing wall wasn’t her favourite memory, Gabriel begs to differ.
“It is so exciting, it is," he said. "I remember when I went there as a kid, there was like a climbing wall and man, I just abused that climbing wall when I was little. I remember that climbing wall like it was yesterday."
As both Gabriel and Aleksi Campagne start their own musical journeys, Kaldor is excited to play alongside them for the first time.
“Just to be able to play and be a part of something is really thrilling. My sons are starting their career and doing the same thing. It’s kind of like it’s coming back around full circle,” Kaldor said.
On Aug. 4, Les Barricades will be performing on the Grizzly Paw Stage 2 at 3:20 p.m. while Kaldor will be at the Stan Rogers Stage at 6:40 p.m.
Les Barricades, Aleksi and Kaldor play together onstage at the Mountain FM Pub Stage at 8 p.m. for the final day of the festival.
