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Can you think of a summer day better than one filled with good weather, great music, and gorgeous surroundings? While the Vancouver Folk Music Festival can’t control the first, the second and third are always on lock at the yearly Jericho Beach-based bash.
With everything from indie sad boys (Hazlett) and iconic protest singers (Billy Bragg), to award-winning Indigenous soul (Aysanabee) and local stars (Haley Blais, Surf Hat, Ruby Singh and the Future Ancestors), the 49th annual festival promises a little something for everyone.Take some time to soak up the glorious vibes, and if you want to expand your eardrums, our editors have picked six acts that might just become your new faves.
Different countries have their own deeply rooted musical traditions, but sometimes crossing borders can create something truly unique. That’s the case with Mitsune, a Berlin-based band that started as a trio of shamisen players before expanding to include double-bass, percussion, and vocals. The result is a psychedelic-infused trip, blending the sounds of Japan’s tsugaru-jamisen with contemporary jazz, punk, and funk influences.
Even more delightful is the band’s live show, where the members don colourful costumes and embody a fizzing, frenetic energy. Songs range from the more ritualistic and folkloric (“Maru”) to the bluesy (“Fusako no Hula”, where the shamisen sounds almost like a banjo or ukulele) to the downright mind-melting (“Aizu Bandaisan”). Mix in colourful visuals and maximalist flair onstage, and you’ve got a recipe for an unlikely party under the blazing Vancouver sun. (VW) Saturday South Stage, 11 a.m. / Sunday West Stage, 11:15 a.m.
If you’re looking for high energy, fun vibes, you needn’t look past local ensemble Empanadas Ilegales. The psychedelic cumbia and salsa group knows how to party with a mostly instrumental act that begs the audience to get off its feet. The winding, whimsical “Mano Peluda” and the constant, searching “Chicharra” are part of a catalogue that can be equally enjoyed while fading into a substance-aided descent into the grass and dancing your feet off.
The group’s forthcoming album, LABORATORIO TROPICAL, comes out late next month and promises to keep the party going. Get the dance party started early. Or, you know, fade into the music. The Vancouver Folk Music Festival contains multitudes. (NC) Saturday West Stage, 4:40 p.m. / Sunday West Stage, 2:30 p.m.
Back in the day, you might have heard of the Neilsons: a parents-and-three-kids music group that released a couple of country radio hits in 1996 and then completely disappeared. The daughter, Tami Neilson, wasn’t done with the music biz though. She moved from Toronto to New Zealand in 2007, and has since become a noted rockabilly icon in the Antipodes. And it’s not just us who think so: she’s a multi-time winner of Best Country Act at the Aotearoa Music Awards, making her arguably the nearest thing Auckland has to a bona-fide Nashville-style star.
But Neilson doesn’t need America to be great. While her music borrows from imagery and sound typical of the Southwest—cowboy boots, pedal steels, sharpshooters—her sound is both fresh and familiar. Hot on the heels of her 10th album, last year’s Neon Cowgirl, Neilson is riding into the Vancouver Folk Festival with country-fused swagger and rootsy rock power. Here’s hoping she can rope in a couple of friends to play album highlight “Borrow My Boots”: a real barn-burner dedicated to feminine friendships and the power of a good shit-kicker. (VW) Saturday Main Stage, 6 p.m. / Sunday West Stage, 12:50 p.m.
I don’t know for sure what song Valerie June is going to start her Folk Festival set with, but, if the accomplished American soul/folk/rock/country artist wants to take very unsolicited advice from the Straight, “Joy Joy!”, the opening song from her latest album, Owls, Omens, and Oracles, seems like a no-brainer.
The song is a celebratory, uplifting tune that would kick off her 7:35 p.m. Sunday set nicely. From there, June has a deep catalogue of songs that are going to play perfectly at the beach, including others off Owls like the contemplative and beautifully slow-building “Endless Tree” and the electric, singalong-y “Inside Me”.
Really, Jericho is a perfect background for what June brings. Let her soulful, fun, and danceable tunes guide your night. I’d also highly recommend catching her at the Sunday Rise Up and Sing workshop, which also includes Billy Bragg and Ken Pomeroy, among others. (NC) Sunday South Stage, 10:30 a.m. / Sunday Main Stage, 7:35 p.m.
While still in her early 20s, there’s something about Ken Pomeroy that feels like she’s from another time. Start with a first name that seems cut from the same cloth as Johnny Cash’s immortal “A Boy Named Sue.” Add to that that Pomeroy has shared the stage with legitimate country icons like the legendary Wanda Jackson. And then consider, after trafficking in soft-focus folk for her awesomely titled 2021 debut Christmas Lights In April, Pomeroy leans a little closer to ghost-on-the-highway, sepia-toned Americana on her sophomore full-length Cruel Joke.
Born to a mother who named her ᎤᏍᏗ ᏀᏯ ᏓᎶᏂᎨ ᎤᏍᏗᎦ—the translation being “Little wolf with yellow hair”— the Cherokee singer/songwriter draws on her family history as an artist. Of the Cruel Joke campfire comedown “Coyote”, she notes, “In Native stories, a coyote can be a troubling omen. The vignettes serve as a moving example of embracing tradition, extending it, and making it personal. Growing up Native, there are a lot of signs and works that include animals.”
If that’s a little on the cryptic side, consider this from Cruel Joke’s stripped-down and confessional “Strangers”: “The wind keeps on hitting me like my mother used to/Unlike her, I feel like it doesn’t want to.” On the subject of old school, Jesus Christ, if you know, you know. (MU) Sunday South Stage, 10:30 a.m./ Sunday East Stage, 1:55 p.m.
One of the many amazing things about the Vancouver Folk Music Festival is the way that you get to play cultural tourist. Music is transportive, as anyone who’s ever spent an evening with Bob Marley, Franco, Édith Piaf, or John Prine knows. And yes, considering all those legends are currently hanging out at the world’s coolest bar in heaven, we’re talking about living the past through your favourite mediums, whether that be CD, vinyl, cassette, or 8-track.
On the live front, Congotronics remains a bucket-list favourite. But until we scrape together the plane fare, BIM fills the void on the hypnotically exotic front. The band also known as Benin International Musical leans into the idea that musical boundaries are to be straddled, with world music colliding with throwback Afrobeat, OG hip-hop, desert blues, and polyrhythmic jazz.
And that’s just a start—did we mention voodoo being an essential part of the mix? That’s admittedly scary if your only exposure consists of a lone trip to New Orleans and repeat summer viewing of Wes Craven’s truly amazing The Serpent and the Rainbow.
Keeping in mind that you can substitute “voodoo” for voudon, BIM’s drummer and spokesman Jimmy Belah says this: “Vodoun is not what people see in movies, a bad thing. Vodoun is about the earth, it’s about the water, it’s about human beings, it’s about nature. It’s a culture, it’s a lifestyle, and it’s a philosophy. It teaches us how to live together.” If that sounds a little bit like your best experience as a tourist, that’s not by accident. (MU) Sunday West Stage, 4:25 p.m./ Sunday Main Stage, 9:30 p.m.