Return to the Rock

As with most places I’ve travelled to for a second time, one of my first thoughts upon arriving in St. John’s on Friday was “where did the time go?” The previous time I was here was 21 years ago. I was in my 20s then, an idealistic hill staffer who still had hair. My only overseas foray was a trip to France 7 years earlier. A lot has happened in those 20 plus years and I have been fortunate to see a lot of places in the world.

My reason for coming here was to see the legendary Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival in St. John’s. But I decided to stay a few extra days to visit other parts of the island and get reacquainted with a place that holds a lot of good memories for me.

For you folkies, you might appreciate what I experienced this weekend. For you who are not, consider it a cultural experience – an opportunity to see the people of this island truly in their element and welcoming visitors with open arms to share their diverse musical history. Music is what keeps these people going in hard times.

I will not provide a play by play of what I saw. The highlights for the weekend were as follows:

Buddy Wasisname and the Other Fellers – these guys are not hugely skillful musicians but they know a billion songs and they are awesome at interpreting the unique Newfoundland humour through song. Buddy has been at this for many years – I saw him the last time I was here and he seemed to be an elder statesman of Newfoundland music back then.

Francophone stage – the festival organizers have set aside a performance space for a linguistic group that we rarely associate with Newfoundland. But French were among the earliest settlers and their musical influences are important to the island’s folk tradition. Highlights for me were Christine Tassan et les Imposteurs, a Montreal based all-female band that pays hommage to Félix Leclerc (Quebec’s finest songwriter of all time) and Django Reinhardt (a Parisian Gypsy who was a legendary jazz guitarist in the 50s). The two men met in Paris by chance and fused their musical styles together. Christine and her talented friends are keeping that eclectic collaboration alive and the music was a hit with the crowd. Another Quebec outfit that was a hit with the crowd was Genticorum, a band that has made its mission to keep traditional Québécois songs and tunes alive. I’ve seen them many times over the years and they are always a highlight for me. The fiddler, Pascal, is a powerhouse who makes the instrument look maddeningly easy.

Kubasonics – dubbed as “Newfoundland’s best Ukrainian band” – are there really others? So their music isn’t immediately associated with the Newfoundland tradition but when you consider the bandmembers’ mastery of multiple instruments and their insanely good fiddler, they start to fit right in. They played a variety of styles and sang almost everything in Ukrainian. Apart from the fiddle talent my favourite element of the band was the use of the cymbaly, an instrument that was once commonly played among Ukrainians on the Prairies. It’s a sort of horizontal harp with the strings played by tapping them with small sticks. Hearing it reminded me of seeing my great-uncle Steve play it when I was a small boy.

The Friel Sisters – a trio from County Donegal in Ireland, these girls rock. They played a hot set of traditional songs and instrumental tunes.

The Dardanelles – you may know the leader of this band. Tom Power is the host of CBC’s show “Q”. As local favourites, they were tapped to close the final night. Their fiddle and accordion players were among the best I saw all weekend, but the highlight of the band was Matthew Byrne, a multi-instrumentalist polyglot with a gorgeous pure tenor voice. He led the band (and the audience) in a number of stirring Newfoundland sea shanties. They closed the night by inviting all the festival’s volunteers up on stage to sign Ode to Newfoundland, led by Byrne.

Dardenelles with Tom Power (centre) and Matt Byrne (far right)

When not at the festival I was stuffing myself with fresh seafood, visiting Signal Hill and, on the Friday night, partook in a tear down George Street with a buddy I met at the festival that night. George St. is St. John’s infamous party alley full of bars with top notch live music as well as your standard night clubs. In my view, if you remember George St., you weren’t really ever there. So I’ll leave it at that.