Our First Official Festival!

Yesterday we played at our first official festival…City Roots at The Distillery District!  I wanted to write about it in our Blog because it seems when I don’t have either pictures or a written record of an event, it fades from my memory way too quickly. 

I’m not usually overly nervous when we perform but yesterday I felt some extra butterflies from the time I got up in the morning. The anticipation of being on stage, at the same time, with three well known artists…Brian Gladstone, Danny Marks, and Lynne Hanson…was both exciting and a bit intimidating. Also, I started playing the guitar just over two years ago and this was my first time playing in public without my music stand (a.k.a. “the crutch”) for more than a song or two. Yikes, what a day to try that…when sitting a few seats away from two of Toronto’s brilliant guitarists!

We performed ‘in the round’. I think that’s what they call it. All of us were on the stage together and took turns doing our tunes. Andy Frank from CIUT 89.5 FM  introduced the group and when he mentioned that we were originally from Winnipeg, I noticed a few faces light up in the audience! It’s always nice to have some hometown folks in the crowd. And it was wonderful to see those familiar Toronto faces who came out to show their support.  

Dwight and I started off the set with one of our new songs called ‘Lucky Me’. Although the song was inspired by our trip to Africa, I think it had double meaning for us yesterday as we felt very lucky to be part of such a prestigious festival. We watched in awe as each of the other performers took their turns. Brian Gladstone mesmerized the audience with his unique finger-picking style and songs that reflect humour and social conscience. Danny Marks created a warm relaxed vibe with his engaging sense of humour and rich guitar sound that sends chills up your spine! And Lynne Hanson’s bluesy-roots songs got the audience’s feet tapping while she held the rhythm on a cool instrument that I think is called a porchboard bass.

The set ran for almost 90 minutes. There was music at other stages on the site so it’s to be expected that folks may want to roam around to see as many as possible. However, we were surprised at the large number of people who stayed from beginning to end.

After our set, we were invited along with all the other festival performers to join in the Festival Finale and sing some backup on songs from the days of the Riverboat Coffee House of the 1960’s. We were kind of surprised at how few performers jumped at the chance to go on stage and next thing we knew we were singing lead on ‘One Tin Soldier’ accompanied by some of the best musicians around…Anne Lindsay on violin, Kirsten Jones and Jason Fowler on guitar, James Gordon and Sons on harmonica, accordian, and mandolin. It was completely spontaneous, unrehearsed…good thing there wasn’t time to think it through as I may have come up with a bunch of reasons for not doing it. And then I would have missed out on the fun of it. Note to myself…don’t be such a tight ass!

It was a great day for us..invigorating, humbling, inspiring, challenging, and gratifying, all at the same time!

If you want to see more of the artists I mentioned above, check out their websites:
Brian Gladstone www.backtothedirt.com
Danny Marks www.dannym.com
Lynne Hanson www.lynnehanson.com