Archive - The National
EPIC in nature
The National Folk Festival in Canberra can be described in one word "EPIC"; and that also happened to be the name of the venue, Exhibition Park in Canberra. Over 55,000 patrons, 1,300 volunteers and I don't know how many performers filled the air with music and bustle over the Easter 2011 weekend in the nation's capital city. I caught up with a lot of friends and had opportunity to perform as an unlisted act. There were some real class performances, many international artists, really way too many to mention all. My three favourite acts were 'The Good Lovelies' from Toronto, Canada, 'The Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band' from San Francisco, USA and lastly, an Australian/English duo - Nancy Kerr and James Fagan.
My favourite three
The Good Lovelies are a Canadian trio with smooth harmonies, melodic tunes which borrow from folk and country, with a touch of thirties/forties swing. The Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band played sublime bluegrass which just oozed genuineness from all the band members. They brought with them a wealth of experience. Peter Rowan played with Bill Monroe in the sixties; their mandolin player Jody Stecher played so well that he had applause almost every time he played an instrumental break. Nancy Kerr and James Fagan have been performing together for over 15 years and this year won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Duo. Their music is contemporary folk blending Australian colonial with English influences - a real pleasure to hear.
The National Folk Festival in Canberra can be described in one word "EPIC"; and that also happened to be the name of the venue, Exhibition Park in Canberra. Over 55,000 patrons, 1,300 volunteers and I don't know how many performers filled the air with music and bustle over the Easter 2011 weekend in the nation's capital city. I caught up with a lot of friends and had opportunity to perform as an unlisted act. There were some real class performances, many international artists, really way too many to mention all. My three favourite acts were 'The Good Lovelies' from Toronto, Canada, 'The Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band' from San Francisco, USA and lastly, an Australian/English duo - Nancy Kerr and James Fagan.
My favourite three
The Good Lovelies are a Canadian trio with smooth harmonies, melodic tunes which borrow from folk and country, with a touch of thirties/forties swing. The Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band played sublime bluegrass which just oozed genuineness from all the band members. They brought with them a wealth of experience. Peter Rowan played with Bill Monroe in the sixties; their mandolin player Jody Stecher played so well that he had applause almost every time he played an instrumental break. Nancy Kerr and James Fagan have been performing together for over 15 years and this year won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best Duo. Their music is contemporary folk blending Australian colonial with English influences - a real pleasure to hear.
Poet's Breakfast
It was worth the effort to start each day at the Poet's Breakfast and I was fortunate to be able to recite a brand new poem 'Do you like me today?', in front of an esteemed group of motley individuals. Bush poets from around Australia were in full swing and there were some very fine poems indeed, many which had me in fits of laughter. The first morning was dedicated to David Meyers who sadly passed away in September last year, an active and highly respected bush poet/singer-songwriter/MC/all-round-good-bloke. It was good to catch up with Lorraine McCrimmon from Bungendore who had some recitals of her own. Lorraine hosts a Music and Poetry Night on the first Friday of each month at the Royal Hotel, Bungendore, NSW - a great little venue for local talent. See the link on the 'Events' link for more details. [Postscript: The venue for the Bungendore Music & Poetry night is now at Provincial Pantry
Village Square, Bungendore.]
Murrumbateman Acoustic Music Club & other friends
I was lucky to have the National coincide at the same time as Murrumbateman's monthly meet and so managed to visit folk there for a few hours on the last Sunday evening of April. All performances were unplugged and so it was like serenading friends/family. It was very good to be there - thanks for the warm welcome everyone. Thanks David, Dianne, Eric and Shirley. Special thanks go to Michael for taking some great photos, some of which have been used on this site. I caught up with a lot of friends both in and out of the music scene and it was really great to see everyone there including Chris, Andrew and Helen.
Jamming and performing
Jammed with Lawrence - a djembe and didgeridoo player, Ian on mandolin and Erin on fiddle at the festival. Ian managed to get up on stage with me to perform a half hour set at the Tantric Turtle cafe near the big 'Majestic' tent. There we encouraged donations for the cafe who had some of their cakes and plates stolen the previous night. It went fine and Ian did very well considering we had practically no rehearsal. Getting stage time required early booking and the bigger the venue, the more competitive it was to play a blackboard performance. There were a lot of musicians promoting brand new CDs of which I have to admit, I bought a few. I was fortunate enough to play several times including a 20 minute set at 'The Scrumpy'. Unfortunately being the opening act meant starting off with a very quiet tent. That's alright, the people inside enjoyed it and at least crowds did start to make their way into the tent for the next acts.
So many acts so little time
At any given time there were approximately 20 choices of acts/sessions to attend. This, combined with working to help run the festival as a volunteer, meant it was impossible to see everyone. There were a lot of acts that I either missed out seeing or only saw for a limited time. The important thing was that there was still opportunity to see many great performances. For example, the ANZAC Day Concert was very special and in it, Nerys Evan's poetry recital of family World War I experiences brought a tear to many eyes. Eric Bogle's performance of the classic ' The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' was warmly received. This concert will be the first of a new trend; apparently the ANZAC Day Concert is a new event that will now continue in future festivals. Finally, I got to see Mark Stevens and Gordon Wallace play in their Crooked Fiddle Band at the 'Flute and Fiddle' tent. They almost literally brought the house down and hopefully next year they get a stronger venue more capable of withstanding a "post-apocalyptic hoedown" [quote from their website].
National Photos
If you want to see the photos of the National, just go to the page titled "The National", a sub-age underneath Gallery or just click here to go straight to it.
It was worth the effort to start each day at the Poet's Breakfast and I was fortunate to be able to recite a brand new poem 'Do you like me today?', in front of an esteemed group of motley individuals. Bush poets from around Australia were in full swing and there were some very fine poems indeed, many which had me in fits of laughter. The first morning was dedicated to David Meyers who sadly passed away in September last year, an active and highly respected bush poet/singer-songwriter/MC/all-round-good-bloke. It was good to catch up with Lorraine McCrimmon from Bungendore who had some recitals of her own. Lorraine hosts a Music and Poetry Night on the first Friday of each month at the Royal Hotel, Bungendore, NSW - a great little venue for local talent. See the link on the 'Events' link for more details. [Postscript: The venue for the Bungendore Music & Poetry night is now at Provincial Pantry
Village Square, Bungendore.]
Murrumbateman Acoustic Music Club & other friends
I was lucky to have the National coincide at the same time as Murrumbateman's monthly meet and so managed to visit folk there for a few hours on the last Sunday evening of April. All performances were unplugged and so it was like serenading friends/family. It was very good to be there - thanks for the warm welcome everyone. Thanks David, Dianne, Eric and Shirley. Special thanks go to Michael for taking some great photos, some of which have been used on this site. I caught up with a lot of friends both in and out of the music scene and it was really great to see everyone there including Chris, Andrew and Helen.
Jamming and performing
Jammed with Lawrence - a djembe and didgeridoo player, Ian on mandolin and Erin on fiddle at the festival. Ian managed to get up on stage with me to perform a half hour set at the Tantric Turtle cafe near the big 'Majestic' tent. There we encouraged donations for the cafe who had some of their cakes and plates stolen the previous night. It went fine and Ian did very well considering we had practically no rehearsal. Getting stage time required early booking and the bigger the venue, the more competitive it was to play a blackboard performance. There were a lot of musicians promoting brand new CDs of which I have to admit, I bought a few. I was fortunate enough to play several times including a 20 minute set at 'The Scrumpy'. Unfortunately being the opening act meant starting off with a very quiet tent. That's alright, the people inside enjoyed it and at least crowds did start to make their way into the tent for the next acts.
So many acts so little time
At any given time there were approximately 20 choices of acts/sessions to attend. This, combined with working to help run the festival as a volunteer, meant it was impossible to see everyone. There were a lot of acts that I either missed out seeing or only saw for a limited time. The important thing was that there was still opportunity to see many great performances. For example, the ANZAC Day Concert was very special and in it, Nerys Evan's poetry recital of family World War I experiences brought a tear to many eyes. Eric Bogle's performance of the classic ' The Band Played Waltzing Matilda' was warmly received. This concert will be the first of a new trend; apparently the ANZAC Day Concert is a new event that will now continue in future festivals. Finally, I got to see Mark Stevens and Gordon Wallace play in their Crooked Fiddle Band at the 'Flute and Fiddle' tent. They almost literally brought the house down and hopefully next year they get a stronger venue more capable of withstanding a "post-apocalyptic hoedown" [quote from their website].
National Photos
If you want to see the photos of the National, just go to the page titled "The National", a sub-age underneath Gallery or just click here to go straight to it.
