NLFB - stands for the Northern Lights Festival Boreal and it's one of the oldest folk festivals in Canada, going on for 39 years in Sudbury. I was there this past weekend, and it was perhaps the best and worst festival experience I have ever had. Here is why:
GOOD THING: The very first person that I met when I arrived was Fred Penner. We talked about Bruce Peninsula (who he said he HAD HEARD OF!!!) and how we would should get together for some "late night party jams". My six-year old self was going bananas...
BAD THING: It appeared that nobody was planning to come this festival. When we arrived on Friday night, Ohbijou was playing the mainstage and there were maybe 100 people there. There were supposed to be something along the lines of 10,000. The low numbers continued on for the rest of the weekend...yikes.
GOOD THING: We did a workshop with Danny Michel on the mainstage and there was some unexpected chemistry there. He played along with our a cappella stuff and we played percussion along with his songs. You can basically expect a Juno/Grammy/Toni award winning collaboration between Danny Michel & Steve McKay in 2013.
BAD THING: They didn't have guitar amps. I know right!?! What were they thinking? And when we asked for guitar amps, we got this really weird attitude that sort of implied that we were dicks for asking. BRUTAL!!! I guess folk festivals don't like electric things...
GOOD THING: Gord Downey mentioned how great the collaboration was between Danny Michel and Bruce Peninsula during his set...actually, Dave Clarke said it first, but then Gord Downey said it again. Then he went on to make fun of our band name...which was hilarious. Oh - and Julie Doiron was in that band, thus completing the Daniel, Fred and Julie reference from the subject.
I'm going to end on a good thing, because even though it was kind of a terrible experience, I'm strangely happy about how it all went down...and I look forward to my prospective Toni award with Danny Michel.
Steve