7:30 p.m. – I check in at the gate at the Live from the Rock folk festival while Luke Warm and the Cold Ones are on stage, and honestly, I’m both impressed with their modern folk sound and surprised to learn it’s a local band. I’m looking forward to getting a better look at them later this weekend.
For now I have to get to to the tent, unload my stuff and prepare for night one – and by that I mean do a quick tour of the food offerings (vegan food? Check) and the menu in the beer garden (dealcoholized beer? Check) before spreading out my blanket in front of the stage and settling in for an amazing night of music.
Here we go!
8:20 p.m. Onion Honey were born to play festivals like this one, and I’m clearly not the only person who feels that way because one of the women in the band — Leanne? — just started talking about how much they’ve been loving touring in Northern Ontario.
The festivals here are a little smaller and a little more wholesome and community-oriented than they are in the big cities, and a string band with catchy melodies and gorgeous harmonies like these guys have can really shine on the mainstage, which is exactly what they’re doing here.
9:06 p.m. Divka introduces their second song by saying they are channelling a particularly personal kind of anger through their music tonight because a cellist they know and love has enlisted to fight in the Ukrainian military.
They break into dark, percussive number that communicates that anger even to those who can’t understand the Slavic lyrics.
This duo of Alina Kumar on bandura and Zoë Santo formed in part as a way to channel anger, and they perform a mixture of Ukrainian and global folk music with an emphasis on women’s empowerment.
The dark, angry number is followed by one of the duo’s signatures, if a band this new can be said to have one: “I Didn’t Know.” It’s an American old-time folk song rewritten by the duo to recount the story of a woman who repeatedly shoots the men she encounters. The call-and-reaponse chorus? “I didn’t know – SHE DIDN’T KNOW – that it was loaded.”
I’ve seen the band do this song in concert twice now, and it’s possible I’ve had too much fun both times.
For the rest of the set, the duo treats us to a medley of two songs from lands colonized by Russia — Eastern Finland and Southern Ukraine — a song about a woman who grows a weed crop that gets eaten by birds and a song in which the audience is called upon to bleet like goats.
On top of everything else, Zoe, in particular, is hilarious. Did you know that the viola is sexy, lush dark chocolate, and the violin is Nestle? True story folks.
10:32 p.m. – I’m cold but I’m just going to have stay that way because I’m not going back to the tent to get my sweatshirt. Donne Roberts has us all moving with his hypnotic Malagasy guitar grooves and iconic Canadian bassist David Woodhead on bass. And I don’t want to miss any of it. Fortunately, my friend and camping-mate for the weekend, Heather McLeod, has loaned me her shawl to cover up a little, and it’s doing the job.
A large portion of the audience is on its feet in front of the stage dancing at this point, and my body is involuntary moving to the rhythm as I type this, especially as Donne breaks into a cover of “Blowing in the Wind.”
It’s exactly what the doctor ordered. Or the therapist. Or whoever orders music therapy for the masses. Can’t wait for day two.
