Vancouverianer: Folk Fest

We had heard a lot about the Vancouver Folk Music Festival in advance, being the music event of the year, great atmosphere, unique location, cool people and everything ... so we wanted to experience that ourselves. Folk music is not to be confuses with what would be Volksmusik in German. You can find many definitions for original Folk Music like music transmitted by word of mouth, music of the lower classes, music with no known composer. At the Vancouver Folk Music Festival it is simply called "the people's music" and over the 32 years of its existance they tried to have music that is not too commercial/mainstream and there is matching the tradition of blending music and politics. All in all the music varied from folk (singer/songwriter with guitar), hip hop, pop, punk, jazz and klezmer.

some 30000 visitors were expected (10000 each day)

360° nice view

Because I wanted to have a real canadian experience and possibly get to know some more people I decided to volunteer for the three day event. My first choice was the lantern making comitee, second would have been little folks and third floater. Inbetween I was also offered to work in the performers lounge. Anyway that all did not work out and after all I ended up in Duncans Security Team G, the best Team of all! I had two 4-hour shifts with Duncan at the service gate, so I could benefit from his 10 years of Folk Fest experience. My last shift at the Backstage area was also great fun, we even got a massage and foof was delivered so we did not have to line up.

Securing the service gate was busy and fun

The great thing about volunteering is that you still have a lot of time to listen to music, sit/lie in the grass (hay) or wander around after or before your shifts. I got to see great concerts and the headlines each night were all great although most of them had aged quite a lot (Arrested Development, Proclaimers etc.) It was the oldest performer, Mavis Staples, age 70, who brought down the house Staples and closed out the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, 2009 on Sunday.

See you next year is what everybody said for goodbye. I would be awsome to return to Security Team G.

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