another summer, another folkfest far from my home
So I missed FolkFest again this year. Time was that my parents bought us all tickets as a knee-jerk measure, no matter who featured on the lineup; this happened from about 1989 to about 2001. Once they decided that I was “grown up” enough to buy my own tickets I simply lapsed into indifference: I’ve always had a goodish time at FolkFest, but never without that initial struggle.
The tarp run is always the first thing I think of, and that was only fun for me one year, 1995. Elvis Costello was the main (heh) attraction, and he at the time - and still, to an extent - was my hero. My sister Jessica and I therefore lined up with all our equipment at about one-thirty the morning of, and had fun trying to out-tired each other. Friends came by every now and again with provisions, and I experienced the unique accident of meeting Master MacManus himself, when I was trying to find a a Port-A-Potty and came up against the main stage instead. I was sixteen.
But largely I hated the people whom I knew and ran into at FolkFest - counterfeit flower children from high school who were constantly “at peace” with themselves and looked really good in wraparound skirts. Do you know these sorts of people? They’re the sort who are wholly fixed on you for about seven minutes, until you’re conned into thinking you’re the centre of some universe, and then they flit off like pixies to the next thing. In high school, the most vivid battle scars - for me, at any rate - came from realizing that they weren’t really listening at all. And these are the sorts who swarmed like fruitflies around FolkFest. It was because of them and that event, I think, that I swore never to take the imperative “dress comfortably” seriously again - because what it really means is long floaty dresses that don’t cover your arms and long flowy hairdos that make the back of my neck itchy.
But family and the boyfriend were good fun, once we were in there - the boyfriend I had throughout high school had musical parents who were often themselves in the lineup, so his tickets tended to be comped. I remember one year the two of us walked along the wooden paths for more than an hour with Moe Berg, just shooting the shit. I get a little twinge of star power whenever I hear the Pursuit of Happiness on the radio now.
Also there were the Elephant Ears.
And Dar Williams, come to think of it. I’m so reluctant to hear new music, but one afternoon in 1996 a workshop I’d been watching had just ended and it was a beautiful day, and I couldn’t bring myself to leave my little spot on the knoll, so I stayed, and Dar came on. She was backed by a full band and it was simply the most marvellous music I ever heard, and for some reason it came at the right time - I had just graduated from high school and one of those awful maudlin moments was upon me, all that bullshit about chapters ending. But it was that afternoon that I realized that I don’t think high school was a place I was meant to be in, or would ever be right in, and that was perfectly all right because I was finished with it, and I’d been accepted to university, and the proverbial world was at my very real feet.
There was also a year when I got to sit in front of the main stage and hug my mom while Jann Arden sang “Good Mother”, which is one of the few trigger songs in my life that will make me cry no matter what mood I was in the moment before - usually while I’m driving, which is never so great. I didn’t tell Mom why I was hugging her, but that’s the great thing about moms: they’ll never ask for reasons when it comes to hugs.
I suppose there are a few good memories after all. While I’m on it I’ve never seen my brother John happier than when he was sitting at FolkFest, practically inside the speaker on the main stage, rocking back and forth with the most beautiful cherubic smile on his face. And now, I hear, he has a crush on Norah Jones. (Well, who wouldn’t? I certainly do.)
In any case. None of that makes me regret having missed it this past weekend - apart from family I don’t know any of those people anymore, and the experience would be mercenary and tedious with the people I’m close to now. Rah for affirmation.
I bet I’m keeping you all in suspense about the last twenty Things About Me, huh? More coming shortly.
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