Sunday was another stellar day at MusicFest

By Keith and Heather Nicol

The Grassy Knoll has had a makeover

   Since MusicFest offers 5 stages running at the same time it is often a challenge to figure where to go to hear the music you are interested in. Since moved to the Comox Valley 3 years ago from Newfoundland we always have a affection  for listening to fiddles, jigs and reels. Newfoundland is known for its kitchen parties and there was a kitchen party of sorts at the Barn at 10:00 am on Sunday when 4 groups got together to play. They included the Fretless, The StepCrew (which we had seen earlier), The Atlantic String Machine and Qristina Brooke which all feature lots of fiddles in the mix.  The Atlantic String Machine was hard for the others to join in on since they play classical music but all the others often played music they knew the others would be to join in. The volume of all those strings made for a memorable session and the StepCrew’s awesome step dancers made it especially lively.

The sprinkler system had lots of takers to cool down

     From there we stayed in the Barn to hear another mix of musicians thrust together to play under the theme of  “Influences”.   And Etage Diouf did an amazing job of coaxing the others to join in and it made for another fun sesson.  After hearing the award winning “Fretless” in the morning we wanted to catch them again at the Grassy Knoll in the afternoon.  This venue has had a welcome makeover since last year and included a huge tent which we all appreciated to get out the sun (Sunday’s temperatures hit 30 C which made it even warmer than Saturday).  It also included beer service which kids were allowed into which allowed families with children to have a drink.  

 

Eliza Gilkyson (right) and Gretchen Peters are part of "3 Women and the Truth"

       After a break at home we returned In the evening to the main Concert Bowl to hear “3 Women and the Truth” , Arlo Guthrie and The Bros Landreth.  The first 2 sessions were like we were in a time warp since “3 Women and the Truth” is made up of Mary Gauthier, Gretchen Peters and Eliza Gilkyson who are all folk singers whose songs have been recorded by Joan Baez, Bob Geldof, Jimmy Buffett and many others.  Next up was Arlo Guthrie who brought us back to Bob Dylan days with songs like “Hey Mister Tamborine Man” as well as his best known songs “Alice’s Restaurant” and “City of New Orleans”.  The Bros Landreth hail from Winnipeg and they are another Juno award winning band known for their bluesy – soft rock music. We didn’t catch the last performer of the festival-Exco Levi and the High Priest – a well regarded reggae musician, since the late nights were catching up to us.  All in all it was another great MusicFest and we look forward to seeing what the organizers have in store for next year.  See https://www.islandmusicfest.com/

Arlo Gurthrie did a fine job of bringing us back a few decades.