FFWD Weekly
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Music by Aubrey McInnis The abundance of musical talent at play and interacting with each other are just a few highlights of our annual stellar folk music festival. As the event is celebrating its 20th anniversary, Fast Forward asked a few of the local participants what their favourite folk fest memory is and what they’re looking forward to during this year’s festivities. Lorrie Matheson (National Dust): "My favourite memory is Dave Alvin, mainstage, kickin’ over his amp. And Giant Sand and Vic Chesnutt both two years ago. "I’m looking forward to playing with Freakwater in workshops and hanging backstage with Steve Earle." Chantal Vitalis: "I am really looking forward to seeing Ulali and, of course, Violent Femmes. "And one thing I’m gonna remember is when I was volunteering two years ago, I was driving the van and Alvin Youngblood Hart was in the van (as) one of my passengers. We were driving towards the island and he said to me, ‘Hey, can you stop here? I wanna get out here.’ So I said ‘OK,’ I thought it was kinda funny. Anyway, he got out and ran after some guy, pushed him to the ground and sat on him and was waiting for the cops. What I found out later was Alvin’s luggage had been stolen and as we were driving along in the van, he saw this guy wearing his clothes. He recognized the clothes and just decided to go and get his clothes back." Karl Roth (Karl Roth Trio): "I’m really looking forward to meeting some great players, great musicians like Joan Armatrading. There’s one album of hers that I just must have worn out – it just hit this place for me. I think I was getting divorced or something and it was one of her sad albums, and I listened to it over and over and over again. And meeting Oliver Schroer, a great fiddle player. And it’s just fun hanging out. "A great folk fest moment? Hmm, I really enjoyed watching the Neville Brothers – I love that band, I love that kind of music, it was just great watching them by the sound tower groovin’." Julie Kerr (Great Uncle Bull): "My favourite folk fest moment is Guy Clark at one of the workshop stages on the hottest day singing ‘Watermelon Dream’ – it was like 300 degrees out. "I’m looking forward to the performer-volunteer parties, a ton of mingling, meeting, laughing and fun." Cam Keating (Scatter the Mud): "The thing that stands out in my mind from days gone by was we played first thing in the morning in 1994 and it rained. Like, two minutes before we went on it started raining heavily. The audience stuck it out, so I was quite happy about that. What we were rewarded with was eventually it cleared up and turned into quite a glorious day, so everyone was very happy about that. There are several acts that I’ve seen that really stand out to me, but I have to say that it’s the audience that really makes the show, and just having the audience stick with you through adverse conditions is really rewarding.... "I look forward to more of that same spirit."

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