My 30 years of enjoying music/folk festivals goes back to the first Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1974 in my hometown. But if I've ever had a better time at a festival than this weekend at Hillside, the memory has faded My 30 years of enjoying music/folk festivals goes back to the first Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1974 in my hometown. But if I've ever had a better time at a festival than this weekend at Hillside, the memory has faded. I'm tempted to call it "the weekend where everything went right," but out of caution I'll tone that down to "the weekend where everything went right as far as I could see."
The obvious place to start is the weather, which went from great Friday and Saturday to perfect on Sunday - the sort of weather capable of pushing good Hillside vibes straight through to exuberance.
I've quibbled with festival organizers at times in the last few years about not having enough workshops where various musicians interact on stage, or even about having too many spoken acts and not enough music at the intimate Sun stage.
No complaints this time, though. There were top acts from the folk festival circuit, including The Wailin' Jennys, The Bills and the Juno Award-winning Le Vent du Nord, plenty of music on the Sun Stage and no shortage of nifty workshops.
The toughest task at a music/folk festival should be deciding which show in any given time slot to go and see, from among rich offerings. That was the case this year at Hillside, but festival organizers tossed in one truly diabolical choice - between the big-name musical comedy trio The Arrogant Worms on the main stage at 8:00 pm Sunday and The Wailin' Jennys, one of Canada's most sought-after roots ensembles, whose solo concert was on the lake stage then.
As soon as they got on stage, the Worms called having to make this choice "tragic" - and then they proceeded to make jokes about whose audience was bigger and better. And then they took it one step further, creating the first " dueling audience" routine I've ever seen at a festival. They abruptly stopped singing when a cell phone went off and was answered by one of the Worms who pretended - we thought - to be debating just that point with one of the Jennys. Then, on cue, a huge roar went up from inside the Lake Stage, delighting the mainstage crowd with the realization that it was a genuine phone conversation. The mainstage crowd roared back to show it was bigger and better. Loud chanting followed as the two crowds - which couldn't see each other - duelled, prompted by their entertainers. A classic "Hillside moment," in my view, at a festival that put comedy on its main stage for the first time this year.
As for me, I ended up watching the Worms and buiying the Jennys' latest CD. You can't win with a concert choice like that, but I guess you also can't lose.