Friend JohnM met me there on Saturday and Dave arrived after work, and then
Sarah, Dave, John, friend Matt, and I went back on Sunday. The weather was perfect mid-summer, ranging from hot enough to make your skin warp on Saturday at the JFK Plaza stage to large, non-threatening raindrops between the clouds, late Sunday afternoon.
Let me just say before I dive into it that the Hot Club of Cowtown is in the top echelon of bands in the world IMO and I was beyond thrilled to see them all weekend, especially at the beautiful Boardinghouse Park stage. How lucky am I that this FF exists and attracts such bands?
On Saturday I showed up at noon or so and was suddenly in a traffic jam trying to get into the heart of the city: a quite different story from 20 years ago. I parked on Jackson Street and shouldered my pack filled with liquids down to Boardinghouse Park, where I caught most of the Steep Canyon Rangers' set before heading over to JFK Plaza to meet up with John. We sat there and sweated through the Rangers' next set and it was well worth it. Nicky Sanders is an above-average fiddle player and Woody Platt is a fine singer. I don't want to damn them with faint praise ... they were a great band to start off the festival with ... I'm sure they didn't sound as muddy on their (#1) recorded hits.
John and I moved over the the Dutton street Dance Pavilion and camped out there for while; a real relief from the hammering sun and there was a tent selling Belgian beer nearby (pretty good, though produced by Anheuser Busch). The first band we saw was the Bruce Daigrepont Cajun Band and that was a rocking good time. I was really looking forward to seeing him and he didn't disappoint: thoroughly vivid accordion solos, quintessentially heartfelt Cajun lyrics and a tight band.
Next up at Dutton Street was the Cape Verdean singer, Maria de Barros, and she kicked some serious island butt. Check this out.
After that was the real stuff as the Hot Club came on. My worldly friend John had never seen them and what resonated the most to me was when he laughed in astonishment about 10 different times at Whit Smith's fingering. No shit, they are musicians of the top-most quality and if your jaw doesn't drop when you see them your soul is dead. It's kind of like the Cirque du Soleil meeting the Grateful Dead, though in a much home-ier environment.
Dave showed up after work for the Hot Club set and then we drove home and had some chicken dinner that couldn't be beat. John was going to go back to NH after the show but was so gobsmacked by the Hot Club that he spent the night with us so he could see them again the next day.
We woke up Sunday and went back up to Lowell. The Hot Club kicked it off at 12:15 at JFK Plaza and there were some heavenly-sent clouds (Pennies From Heaven??) that kept us from roasting as much as the day before. They did their cover of a Reinhardt-Grapelli song, "Exactly Like You" and I would have died if not for having seen them do it before.
Bua followed them and was vastly entertaining, featuring a very talented bodhran player and a good singer. Sarah picked up some great beef kebab from a Portuguese vendor and I got a real nice "LFF" polo shirt with an embroidery of instruments being hauled by a trolley. I couldn't get over how smoothly they were dealing with an incredible crowd on an incredibly hot weekend ... I have to tip my hat to the organizers and again I ask, why can't a city like Boston do anything like this? I guess they can't. Lowell is the perfectly sized and laid-out city for a folk festival.
We drifted over to Boardinghouse Park, stopping to see craft and talent exhibitions lined up along a restored canal. We pulled up a prime piece of grass right in front of the stage (about where we sat for Hot Tuna the summer before). Michele Choiniere was about half-way through her set of Franco-American ballads, a nice interlude before the Hot Club came back on at 3:00.
OK, we toweled off after that and moseyed up to the St. Anne's Churchyard venue ...
... where they were having a "Squeezebox Summit," which turned out to be Bruce Daigrepont, Matthew Rosinski from the polka band ("Lenny Gomulka and Chicago Push"), and Brìan Ó hAir from Bua.
We were thinking about staying for another set but the rain started and we headed for the car BUT our path led us past the Dutton Street Dance Pavilion and we stayed and danced for another 45 minutes or so to the reggae of Clinton Fearon and the Boogie Brown Band while the sun came back out, all was peace and love, and our jaws dropped once again at the excellent saxophone/whistle/whatever tall and white (with red shorts) multi-instrumentalist in his band. This guy jumped off the stage between breaks and stood in front of the fan (I offered him water but he politely declined), and then danced among the crowd and jumped back onstage in time for his next wizardly chorus. Clinton's daughter grabbed the mike for some testimony and a good time was had by all ... they actually did a long encore because they were the last band of the day.
Drove back home and typed it up!
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