The Cat Empire should really be one of the Folk Fest’s evening headliners.
Instead, the Australian meowers were playing the mainstage on Saturday afternoon, stirring up quite the dance party under the scorching sun in Gallagher Park.
Hundreds of folkies shimmied, jumped and clapped their hands to The Cat Empire’s Latin grooves, snappy brass, and lyrics about love, freedom and the unifying power of song. “Music is the language of us all,” Felix Riebl chanted on How To Explain.
Talk about beautiful — and a necessary antidote to much of Friday night’s mainstage, which was heavy on mellow singer-songwriters. Even The Cat Empire’s tendency to noodle away for five or 10 minutes — as on Daggers Drawn — didn’t dissuade most of the dancers, who cheered with gusto as each musician showed off his soloing skills.
Mike Farris, who was scheduled to wrap up Saturday’s mainstage at 11 p.m., wasn’t pulling any punches during his afternoon side session — on Stage 3 with Tom Russell, Lera Lynn, Maura O’Connell and Karan Casey.
Farris was the star of the workshop — treating fans to his wit and amazingly gender- and genre-bending pipes. (If you hear him from a distance, you can’t tell if he’s a man or woman, rock shrieker or gospel singer.)
His cohorts weren’t too shabby, either, and often contributed to his performance. Lynn smouldered with My Least Favourite Life, one of the dour rumblers she performed on HBO’s True Detective. Undaunted, O’Connell followed with an acapella version of The Water Is Wide.
“There was no way I was going to join in,” Farris quipped. “That was absolutely angelic.”
He then earned his wings with a soulful version of Glory Glory (Lay My Burden Down), and shared lead vocals with Lynn and Russell on a show-stopping rendition of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues.
On second thought, why don’t we just get all these musicians to join Farris on Saturday’s mainstage?
(More to come.)
Review
Edmonton Folk Music Festival
When: Saturday, Aug. 6
Where: Gallagher Park
