Folk festival opening night features high-energy, powerful performances By: Eva Wasney Posted: 11:21 PM CDT Thursday, Jul. 11, 2024

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This article was published 11/07/2024 (772 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Handmade street signs, inflatable monkeys, flamingoes, faux flowers and sparkly streamers were rustling in the warm wind greeting attendees on the opening night of the Winnipeg Folk Festival Thursday.

Tarp markers are a necessary tradition for mainstage audience faithfuls. The poles — adorned with all manner eye-catching swag — are a way to find friends, express creativity and stake a claim in their temporary home away from home.

“It’s important,” says 35-year festival veteran Kate Letkemann. “We’ve seen the same tarp markers over the years, it gives you a sense of community.”

Hanging above Letkemann’s tarp was a stuffed cow, shabby from years of love, wearing a red gingham dress.

“Miss Cow has been here for about six years,” she says of the toy, which was once her daughter’s plaything. “When my kids were little they made a fantastic tarp marker in the children’s area but it fell apart over the years.”

Nearby, a stuffed goose named Floor was experiencing its first folk festival from high atop a pole strung with solar twinkle lights.

“I needed a beacon for my friends,” Floor’s keeper Taylor Stewart says. (The stuffie’s name is an inside joke based on a misheard story about the Marvel character Thor.)

Stewart’s been attending the festival since 2018 and has picked up a few tricks of the trade to share with others — such as the importance of a stand-out guidepost in the sea of thousands of festivalgoers.

“I’ve been learning, growing, adopting the festival ways,” she says with a laugh. “There’s a lot of first timers with me this year… and I’m just trying to create a little community out here.”

A yellow Minion doll in a tie-dye T-shirt has been Charla Hum’s festival calling card for the last decade.

“Everyone knows to find us at the Minion,” Hum says. Her tarp marker — found at a thrift store — is a miniature match to a giant plushie of the animated movie character that also marks her site in the festival campground. “The big one we won at the (Red River Ex) playing a game over and over again because we wanted it for folk fest.”

Hum is a lifelong folkie and has a dragonfly tattoo on her foot as a mark of devotion to the annual summer event. She’s also an avid pre-planner, whose weekend is dictated by a musical to-do list. On Thursday, she was looking forward to the night’s mainstage closer, Shakey Graves.

Graves, a.k.a Alejandro Rose- Garcia, last played the festival in 2015. At press time, the one-man-band from Texas (who was later joined by a five-piece backing band) was busy warming up the crowd with stories about vision quests, sing-alongs and teasing snippets of his heavy, foot-stompin’ music.

The 49th festival opened with a blessing, during which Grandmother Chickadee Richard spoke about the area’s original Anishinaabe residents.

Ruth Moody, a Manitoba expat and one-third of The Wailin’ Jennys, followed with a breezy set peppered with songs from her recent solo album, Wanderer. South Carolinian tweener She Returns From War followed with some beautifully mournful country music during the first international show of her career.

Over at Big Bluestem, Australian power trio The Grogans had a couple thousand people boppin’ and bouncing to a high-energy set of guitar-driven, melodic indie garage music. The energy continued into the sunset with some uptempo grooves courtesy of local solo act Roman Clarke.

Back at mainstage, legendary singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams opened in righteous fashion — with her 2003 song Righteously and with her sheer presence on stage following a not-too-distant health incident. The Grammy-winning artist suffered a stroke in 2020 and last year released her 15th studio album, as well as a memoir.

Despite dealing with obvious physical side effects of the stroke, Williams, wearing her signature black eyeliner, performed powerfully. During songs such as Outta Touch and Drunken Angel, her deep, firey voice carried over an enthusiastic crowd — shouts of “We love you, Lucinda,” pierced the air. She appeared to gain energy as the concert went on, swaying and pumping a fist in the air during a closing cover of Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World.

A chair was stationed nearby throughout the hour-long show, but she never used it. The crowd sent her off with a standing ovation.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

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