One of the formative events on the Vancouver cultural calendar each year, the Vancouver Folk Music Festival closed late on Sunday evening with a rousing chorus of the Woody Guthrie chestnut, It’s Been Good To Know Ya (lead by noted Wobbly Utah Phillips), followed by as stirring and soulful a rendition of Ben E. King’s Stand By Me as one could ever wish to hear.
In the hours and days that comprised the 2005 musical narrative that became the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, from the gates opening at 5:30 p.m. Friday afternoon (under leaden skies) through til 11:30 p.m. for the cloudless sky Sunday evening finale, music was carried by the breezes that wafted across the Jericho Beach site — as a panoply of globe spanning, anthemic folk music encompassing folk genres ranging from Celtic, Cajun, hillbilly and progressive country (think the ever-so-fragile and lovely Iris DeMent) to the radical repertoire of The Grande Mothers (Frank Zappa’s band), hip hop, ambient, chill-out, the blues and more … transformed the Jericho Beach / waterfront Point Grey site into safe haven, where once again a world of peace and harmony and love and understanding prevailed for all.

Featuring more than 70 hours of non-stop music on eight outdoor stages — three evenings of mainstage concerts and two full days of performances and workshops throughout and across the always splendid Jericho Beach Park site, the 28th annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival is now underway.
Saturday Afternoon Update: Skies have cleared, and the sun has arrived.
While VanRamblings wanders the site, enjoys the music, greets old friends and recovers some semblance of our always tenuous sanity, we offer you 27 pictures taken by Sarah Pullman, posted at Shutterfly, as well as a few pictures focusing on the market area just outside the west gate.
For the sake of nostalgia, and because the weather thus far in the summer of 2005 has been inclement (just check out the webcam), VanRamblings offers a few photos taken by Susan McKeown at the particularly rainy, but ultimately satisfying, 2001 Vancouver Folk Music Festival.
And, oh yeah, there’s this Tony Montague article in Friday’s Globe and Mail on the Juno award-winning band, Le Vent du Nord, in concert at Stage 1 at 4:15 p.m. today, and set to take the Main Stage at 6 p.m., as well.

With only hours to go until the kickoff of the 28th annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival, diehard folkies are practicing the 300-yard run from the gate to the big stage (cuz it’s important to get your blanket as close to the main stage as possible), while others are stuffing their backpacks with all of the required items for a comfortable Folk Festival — tarpaulin for the ground, large colourful blanket, change of clothes, lots of sunscreen, hat, water bottle, and fresh fruit, among myriad other necessary items.
Media coverage of the Folk Festival is also underway. Vancouver Courier Arts Editor Fiona Hughes suggests in her piece on the Folk Fest that “the programmers are determined to broaden their audience base,” while Courier staff writer Cheryl Rossi covers the volunteer perspective.
Meanwhile, the Georgia Straight’s eminence grise and longtime Folk Fest aficionado, Alexander Varty, chimes in with the Straight’s feature, front-cover article on the Fest, a 1500-word piece titled Spoken Folk, as well as a piece on Bill Bourne and Eivør Pálsdóttir. Kevin Howes writes about Buck 65, who will play on the main stage Friday night.
The Straight’s Tony Montague interviews Scottish singer Julie Fowlis (a member of Dòchas, five young women and one male percussionist who will perform music from the western isles of Scotland at this year’s folk fest, with a Stage 1 concert this Saturday, July 16), as well as politically-minded Texas troubadour Eliza Gilkyson and Karan Casey, one of the great Irish women singers of our time. And, what self-respecting Folk Festival can truly call itself a roots festival without the inclusion of a little Dobro music?

Of the many festivals that take place in Vancouver each year, there is no more salutary and restorative festival than the annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival, this year celebrating its 28th anniversary.
The 2005 Folk Festival lineup not only includes evening concerts from the likes of Iris DeMent, Leslie Feist (here’s a recent concert review) and Sarah Harmer (in The Tyee), but daytime site stage collaborative concerts, with such intriguing appellations as Reely Good Tunes, Harmony is Bliss, Expectations and the Blues, Grrrls With Guitars, and On My Way Home.
Update: In an article published in The Tyee, Vancouver Folk Music Festival artistic director Dugg Simpson discusses “music, community and social change”, the theme of this year’s Fest. And, for those who just can’t wait for the festivities to commence, The Tyee also offers this fetching pictorial. There’s also this pic of the evening stage, from the audience perspective.
In this summer with no summer (although the temperature outside is not too bad, a hot, sunny summer has been all but absent this year on Canada’s west coast), click here for the Jericho Beach webcam (Jericho Beach being the place where the Folk Fest is being held later this week).
Adult advance tickets for the three day festival are $125, or $40 for Friday evening, and $60 for the full day for each of Saturday and Sunday. Weekend student tickets are $75, while those 13 – 18 pay $65; weekend tickets for children 3 – 12 years of age are $15. Seniors’ weekend tickets are $25. In Vancouver, tickets are available at Zulu Records on West 4th Avenue, Highlife Records on Commercial Drive, Boomtown Import Record and Discs on Burrard Street (one block south of Davie), or at the Festival office located at 1113 – 207 West Hastings (at Cambie), and at the gate.