Wednesday, August 19, 2015

The Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival 2015

The Salmon Arm Rootsand Blues Festival is one of the highlights of the music festival season in the BC Interior. 2015's edition was a bit different than past festivals. The layout was a bit different and there was one less stage. Nonetheless, it was a great time for me.

As usual, I was only able to go on Sunday. I got to the festival just after 11 AM and after checking in, headed to the Barn Stage to see a workshop just finishing up. I saw the last two songs from Elephant Revival, Cara Luft, Tim Chaisson, Tony McManus at Colin Savoie-Levac of The Duhks. Elephant Revival impressed me just in those ten minutes, so I decided to come back and see them later.

I stuck around the Barn Stage for the next workshop too. Workshops are one of the hallmarks of the Salmon Arm Festival, and where the magic usually happens. What happens is that a few different musicians are put on the stage together, with one leading the show. They come on with no plan of what to play, then play off of each other to make music. You get a nice mix of improvisation and get to see musicians creating music out of thin air. This workshop was with 2015 Juno World Music Award winner Quique Escamilla, Canadian Latin band Marco Claveria Project and Canadian Latin fusion band Tacoy Ryde. What the crowd got was a high energy fusion of Latin with Tacoy Ryde, 20 year veterans of the music scene, mixing in hot percussion, reggae rhythms and some blues licks to boot. Truly amazing stuff, with Tacoy Ryde being the standouts.

Off to the Blues Stage for the next workshop. The Blues stage is a bit different with the workshops, with less improvisation and more showcasing one musician with the rest acting as the backing band. Usually, a musician will call out a key, say what song they are playing, then play it with some members stepping up to solo. This one had some legends, Canadian legend Amos Garrett, US acoustic blues hallmark Geoff Muldaur, some members of Canned Heat, along with some younger and lesser known musicians, two members of the reunited Rockin' Highliners and US musician Tyrone Vaughn. This was a typical blues stage. Everyone was good, but nothing special.

I headed over to the Shade Stage (after grabbing a poutine for lunch) to see Tim Chaisson. He was on the workshop at the Barn Stage earlier. I was also familiar with his work from hearing his first two albums, which impressed me with their maturity. It would be easy to discount Tim Chaisson was just another “guy with a guitar”, the kind that's all over Top 40 radio now, but his work is much deeper. He's got a country vibe to a lot of his work, plus he's also a fiddle player in the East Coast tradition. Of course, he had the women in the crowd swooning, but he's a great musician and showman on top of that. I was lucky enough to get one of his fiddle tunes on my phone and onto Youtube:



Later on in his set, he brought on one of the members of the Duhks on guitar while he played fiddle for some driving Celtic reels. His last two songs, he showed off a loop pedal. He plays a bit, recorded it into the pedal and then set the pedal on loop to act as his backing track. Watching him play and his familiarity with the technology, updating a very traditional Canadian style, was very eye-opening and exciting. Definitely a musician that deserves more exposure.

Back to the Blues Stage for another workshop. This one was supposed to be led by Josh Hoyer, but he was held up at the border. The main reason I wanted to check this one out was to see the Stooges Brass Band. Like I said earlier, the blues stage tends not to lend itself to wild experimentation, but I was reminded of seeing Hazmat Modine at a blues stage workshop a few years ago. Hazmat Modine are an odd mix of blues, rock and brass band jazz, and the addition of the brass section seemed to add a more experimental and unpredictable element. The Stooges, a brass band in the street-walking New Orleans tradition, certainly did that. They added an energy that's often missing at the blues stage, and blasts of horn added into some stellar blues playing was a great addition.

After a break for dinner (food truck donair, a ritual at any festival I go to), The Duhks took the main stage. The Duhks are a long running Canadian folk band, mostly in the East Coast Celtic style, but they also bring in rock, bluegrass and country elements. One song was also sung in French. Great band, put on a good set, if a bit unremarkable.

Over to the Barn Stage again to see Elephant Revival again, this time by themselves. This band was probably the highlight of the festival for me. Merging all sort of American folk styles, this ensemble band did a wide variety of folk songs. The main singer, Bonnie Paine, had a voice that was both belting and incredibly fragile. She did two songs acapella that were incredibly moving. The rest of the band were equally good, with several of them taking turns at singing and leading the band. Great band, great set.

The last band of the night for me was the legendary Canned Heat. And, they were disappointing. More often than not, I've noticed many of the legends I've seen in the past few years have been less than stellar. That's understandable, given age catching up to them and all. But there's something off about a classic band with no new material playing a festival, like Canned Heat. With a band like Canned Heat, the last thing you want to hear from them is “Here's something from our new album.” There is no new album from them. Everyone just wants to hear them do their set from Woodstock and not much else. There's no incentive for the band to be innovative or try something new, and there's no interest in the crowd to hear something new. So the band just keeps playing the same set every festival they play. Without new material and re-invention, then you stagnate. On the other hand, someone like John Oates (who was also at the festival) has worked hard to re-invent himself and distance his work from his iconic run in Hall and Oates, and made some very interesting and great folk music since going out on his own. Canned Heat were pretty boring and sloppy. Not bad, but they were never great. By the time they finished up, the sun had set, the pot smokers came out, and it was time for me to leave.

As usual, this festival was great. I've been to years that have been better. All of the bands were at least listenable, with most of them being great.

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