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.