Hopeful in Port Hope
Arrived this morning for the Port Hope Estival! (that's not a typo - there's no "F") here on the shores of Lake Ontario in Northumberland County.
Pretty much perfect weather and steady traffic all day at the portrait booth. We took a little break around 4 when I took the guitar up to the bandshell for the final song by Barefoot Soul. Mike Woods (pictured here with Anne Finlay) was the guitar player and he did a lovely job with Voyageur.
Caught up briefly with Shaun Noronha from Low Level Flight as we were leaving and they were arriving for their soundcheck. We photographed them with Voyageur a couple of years ago at the D'Addario booth at the MIAC Conference in Toronto.
We didn't stick around - we were on our feet and talking for 8 hours solid. Instead, we checked into the hotel and headed back to Walton St. for a very nice dinner at Black Bean. Only complaints were the baffling presence of dill pickle slices on the rib-eye steak and black bean plate and not-boiling water used to make the tea at the end of the meal. That and no offer of lemon or olives with the otherwise excellent pre-dinner martini!
We'll start at 10 again tomorrow morning but not before we make our way through the Northumberland Breakfast - a special all-local breakfast on the festival site starting at 9:00.
Outside the Lines will play Voyageur in the afternoon and then Aengus Finnan will play it during the headline slot in the evening - always look forward to seeing Aengus.
The weather was so ideal all day but the forecast isn't great for tomorrow. Our tent was perfect today but it will be a nightmare tomorrow if it rains. We remain hopeful in Port Hope that something will shift while we sleep.
Thanks to Marielle Lambert, John and Peg Bennett and all the visitors to the booth today.
Posted at 10:40 PM
Canadian Voices
Just getting around to summarizing this past weekend at the Canadian Voices Festival at Harbourfront Centre in Toronto.
In many ways, it was a tremendous success on a number of fronts but that success was dampened by.... the damp. Thunderstorms and flooding and general grey kept the typically large crowds away, which is a real shame because they missed some great music and a rich presence for Six String Nation.
It started with a visit to the HarbourKids Camps last Tuesday. Junior Authors and Rock Camp kids were all introduced to Voyageur and it seemed to have made a real impact. One staff member told me she overheard a kid being picked up by a parent at the end of the day saying: "Mom, today I touched sixteen pieces of history!"
On Friday, Alex the gallery technician and I installed the portrait show that the Luminato Festival had pulled together for the Four Seasons Hotel and Roots Store back in June. It was great to see them all in one place in the Marilyn Brewer Community space, where we also were set up to do new portraits Saturday and Sunday afternoon.
Friday night was a live broadcast on Radio 3 from the Sirius Concert Stage featuring Newfoundland's Hey Rosetta and Nova Scotia's Jenn Grant. Jenn used Voyageur for a few songs in her headline set and the small but vocal crowd just loved her. Unfortunately, she bumped up against the end of the broadcast and Harbourfront's hard sound curfew and the whole show fizzled to a halt just after 11. This didn't sit well with the audience. Craig Norris from R3 even took a water bottle to the bean trying to send people home. The tension ended when members of Hey Rosetta and Jenn's band combined forces and stood on the bass bins at the front of the stage conducting an unplugged acoustic Wilco singalong using Voyageur.
Saturday's Six String Nation songwriter's workshop on the Redpath Stage with Blair Packham got rained indoors about halfway through. My presentation about the guitar was well attended - all things considered - and well received. And the portrait line-up afterward kept us busy right until the evening show.
Gentleman Reg started his set with Voyageur. The last time we saw him with it was three years ago at Hillside in Guelph. He looked like such a baby then but a bit more like a super-hero now!
Peggy Ann Berton, who contributed her father Pierre's bow-tie to the guitar case a couple of years ago, came up to meet me after the show and have a look at the guitar and what had become of her father's tie. She seemed really pleased.
Sunday was very grim weather right from the morning so a lot of people stayed home. It took me a long time to get to Harbourfront due to flooding on Lakeshore Blvd. That meant there were only about 20 people there for my presentation and the songwriting workshop with David Leask that followed. Still, my friends Nuno Cristo and Aida Jordao were among them so it was an especially friendly group. We conducted the workshop as an interview with me asking David for examples of his work in the craft of songwriting. He was fantastic and used Voyaguer for much of the workshop. He also joined members of the audience who came to get their portrait done after the workshop.
It was sad to see the exhibit come down at the end of the weekend but I'm glad that people got another chance to see it.
Thanks to everyone who came down in spite of the weather and for all the great conversations I had with people while we did the portraits.
An especial thanks to Alex, Geoff, Alok, Adam, Steve, Qi, Laura, Lydia and Susan.
Photo by Jen Brailsford from her BlogTO post, where you'll find shots of the photo exhibit and other great photos from the weekend.
Posted at 8:11 AM