Falcon Ridge Part II: The Attack of the Clones

Back to Falcon Ridge. We pick up our story on Friday, the first day of Main Stage music. In the afternoon we had the scaled down Emerging Artists Showcase. I am not going to do a run down of all the artists. I’m still trying to make this just the highlights of the highlights. My new game at the festival is, “I played that on Gord’s Gold!” I scored a point when Sandy Cash played More Than Meets the Eye. I played that for Women’s History Month. It’s about the scientist who laid the groundwork for the study of Dark Matter. Sandy was my official Festival Stalker. I ran into her constantly. You might say, “Well it’s a small festival,” but I never ran into Neale, among others. I met Sanday when she was an emerging artist 16 years ago! I couldn’t believe it was that long ago. I still think of her as a new friend. As she lives in Israel, I have not seen her since then. For my money Kemp Harris was the runaway leader of the Emerging Artist pack. If he does not get invited back for Most Wanted, I’m claiming massive election fraud. I got to watch him with River. I loved watching them fall in love with Kemp. He knows how to deliver a killer last line.

Richard Thompson played on Saturday night. My friends and regular readers know that he’s my favorite of favorite. I watched the set with Coco & Bruce and Mel. Instead of my usual stadium seat down front we were further back in folding camping chairs. You know something, that’s not so bad. The big advantage of that seat is that it was in the shade during the day. Things you can be sure of when I see RT. I will sing along with 1952 Vincent Black Lightning, sotto voce, and my eyes will tear up at some point. It’s the greatest song ever written and I know every word. I sat with a lyric sheet listening to the song on repeat on my commute to school till I learned it. I am lyrically impaired. The other thing you can count on is that I will do the Wall of Death dance. I picked this up from Allison. It started as a way to signal her husband, Phil Henry, that she was requested he sing it. We then jointly elaborated on it, miming the action. Allison was there too. I texted her and she too did the dance. Mel joined me in the dance, which is done while seating. My dream is that one day I will see Richard in concert and everyone in the audience dances too. I have simple if unrealistic goals.

Now on to Saturday. I missed two acts I wanted very much to see on Main Stage Friday night, so I made a total effort to see The Ebony Hillbillies and David Jacobs-Strain in workshops. That worked out well. Saturday afternoon I saw the Our Roots are Showing workshop with Tracy Grammer, The Ebony Hillbillies, and Stephen Kellog. That was fantastic, a festival highlight. I stood up and danced to the Hillbillies. When is Tracy not amazing? I first saw Steven 20 years ago, young man touring with the four women in Voices on the Verge. He was adorable and they all had crushes on him, including Erin McKeown, and she’s gay. He’s now a father with four kids and still adorable, a great entertainer. I sat on a stadium seat down front with Sandy Cash. Did I mention she stalked me all festival? Maybe she thought I was Naomi, and she was Ruth and vowed, “wither you shall go, I shall go;” or maybe it was just coincidence.

I stayed at the Workshop stage for the Celtic Bluegrass jam. Tony Trischka kept up the Bluegrass end of things but the only thing that was Celtic about Tempest was their kilts. Tony has become one of the musicians I see the most often. I knew two members of his band, Jared Engel on bass and Michael Daves on guitar. Nate Lee, who I don’t know, was the fiddler.

Then I was off to the Main Stage to see Budgiedome favorites, The Gaslight Tinkers. You cannot sit still when they play. They play American trad music with a huge Caribbean influence. There’s nothing wrong with Reggae/Folk fusion. There’s something very right with it. I couldn’t remember the name of the fiddler. There was a good reason for it. She’s new. The ones I really know are Peter on guitar and vocals, I-Shey on conga and vocals, and Garrett on bass. They are musical family.

The highlight of the evening was a full set by Tony Trischka. The official name of this band is Tony Trischka’s Earl Jam. It’s a tribute to Earl Scruggs. You have not lived until you’ve been part of a large audience singing the Ballad of Jed Clampett with them, including the closing stanza. Tony puts in all the dialogue, e.g., “Black Gold, Texas Tea.” He didn’t include one thing I wish he would have, ending the second stanza from the opening with “Brought to you by Kellogg’s of Battle Creek.” I never liked The Beverly Hillbillies much but it’s one of the greatest TV theme songs ever. It’s what inspired Bela Fleck to take up banjo.

I almost forgot the big event of Saturday, the monster storm from hell. It isn’t Falcon Ridge without a monster storm from hell. It came during the dinner break. It was the time I had arranged to meet Kathy so we could have some quality time together. We spent it the merch building while the rain beat down on the tin roof. We had to sit with our faces inches apart so we could hear each other. Thanks to the rain we could talk for hours without missing music. This led to one of my favorite friendship experiences. The woman running the Festival T-Shirt shop came up to us to tell us how much she enjoyed watching us talk. She couldn’t hear what we were saying but we were so animated that she could tell how much we were enjoying our conversation. This is at least the third time this has happened to me and the second time at Falcon Ridge. I love that the intensity of my friendship with people can be obvious to casual observers.

That’s over 1000 words so I think it’s time to declare victory and end this entry. So much for my plan to not go into detail and write up the entire festival in one shot. There will be one more entry to come.