This year’s Canmore Folk Music Festival was a big hit – with the performers.
Jason Wilson, who played Sunday (July 31) evening with Dick Gaughan, said it was his first time at the festival and he loved every moment of it.
“We’ve been on the road for a month and Canmore’s great,” he said. “I like that it’s downsized a little bit, giving most of the artists a chance at the main stage – it’s a great idea – and it seems less intimidating, especially for the audience. They get to see almost all of it, which is great. That’s a bonus.”
Wilson has been coming to Canmore to play shows for 17 years.
“We’ve played everywhere except the folk festival,” he said. “It’s finally nice to do this, because we heard for many years how great it was.”
Self-described as “folky reggae mix blend with a little sprinkle of jazz on top,” Wilson said one of the best aspects of the festival was the chance to collaborate with other artists.
“We had a couple of workshops and got to play with Murray McLaughlan, which is pretty cool, and later on we were with Carolyn Wonderland and Luke Doucet and that was a workshop on the main stage,” he said.
Brian Dickel of The Steel Wheels came a long way for the festival, but stressed it was worth it.
“It’s incredible, the scenery is amazing,” he said. “We come from Virginia, which has mountains, but not like these.
“The hospitality has been amazing, the crowd, the fans, we love Alberta and Canmore.”
Dickel plans to return to Alberta later this year for a tour.
“We’ll be back next winter for sure, we love it every time we’ve been up here,” he said.
For their performance Sunday evening it rained, but that did not deter the band or the crowd.
“It went well; it started raining as we started playing,” he said. “They stuck it out, put the tarps on and got bundled up, and we had more people by the end of it.
“It was a great experience, great response and we couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
Carolyn Wonderland found the festival to be a fun experience.
“I think it’s fun as hell, it’s been real sweet, everyone’s been kind, the weather’s been good,” she said. “As musicians you always drive and fly around hoping for something this cool, and when it comes along it’s real nice, a great surprise.”
Having toured the world in recent months and having played a variety of extreme destinations, Wonderland stressed Canmore is as exotic as the rest.
“Canmore is the adventure,” she said. “You find the fun ones and then hope you might come back. If they have us, hell yeah we’ll come back.”
Sanjay Seran, who sings lead with Delhi 2 Dublin, praised the overall experience of being in Canmore.
“It’s a great festival, great people, everyone who’s organizing it is super nice, so there’s good vibes going on,” he said. “Beautiful scenery, how can you go wrong?”
Calgarian T. Buckley, who played the pub stage, said it was a fabulous experience finally getting to participate in the festival.
“I like the people, it’s very well run, and the people that come too, they’re a very appreciative audience, real music lovers,” he said. “I think it went over very well, there were lots of people in there and they were a lot of fun to play for.”
Perhaps the best part of getting to play Canmore was the chance to hear other artists.
“Like a lot of these folk festivals, and especially Canmore, I’m always really impressed by all the people you haven’t heard of and how many great acts you discover,” said Buckley.
Dickel echoed this sentiment.
“Especially a folk festival like this, where it’s not folk in the truest sense; we really like the festivals where it’s not one genre,” he said. “It’s interesting for us because we’re music lovers ourselves.
“Folk, I think, as the old sense, true acoustic, and folk music nowadays is very broad; everything from world African music to the old school folk,” explained Dickel. “It’s just the people’s music, it’s accepting and open to a lot of different forms that aren’t necessarily mainstream.”
