go to a folk festival

Mainly the Mariposa Folk Festival (held on Toronto Island when I first began going; later moved to a less-than-lovely venue near Barrie; now back in its home venue, a gorgeous park in Orillia, Ontario).

For several summers, a charming little festival in Killaloe, Ontario, which some friends of mine helped organize.

Once, Summerfolk in Owen Sound, Ontario.

Just revisited Mariposa again this past Sunday evening: a serendipitous opportunity that I seized with gusto. Not only got to see several terrific performers, but got to meet a woman whose work I’ve adored since 1980 – and tell her how much her music has meant to me over the years.

Hoping to visit some more festivals this summer, and to go to next year’s StanFest in Canso, Nova Scotia.

Sunshine, trees, neat people, yummy food, interesting crafts, and amazing music: a bit of paradise here on earth.

This would be a great experience. Preferably in a really beautiful and isolated place in the countryside with lots of real ale and cider :)

What’s not to love? I was brought up in Holmfirth, land of Last of the Summer Wine, and home to the annual Holmfirth Folk Festival, when thousands of folkies descended for a weekend on our boring little village bearing tankards and sporting patchwork trousers. For me as a child, it primarily meant a weekend of sitting in pub singarounds drinking Coke and munching all the crisps I could eat, listening to finger-in-the-ear a cappella folk, and that was fine by me, but as an adult, these activities were supplanted by intense drinking sessions, campfire singsongs, and free-for-all insane drunken dancing to Shooglenifty and the Peatbog Faeries. Ace.

I go to this every year in September. They have the coolest vendors – like a Ren Fest but with way better prices – the best food and music. Not to mention the super-cheaply priced beer!