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Greensky Bluegrass and Fleet Foxes both made idyllic folk fest debuts
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Following a host of side stage sessions opening up the Friday music at the 44th Edmonton Folk Music Festival, swaths of people flowed back toward the heart of the event and settled in on the big hill.
Greensky Bluegrass, a five-piece group from Kalamazoo, Mich. was tasked with opening the night. The song Grow Together started it off, a touching piece about a couple finding all the time they could to grow old together. It was an easy way to introduce the crowd to this modern take on one of the most traditional forms of folk music. The group of string players — dobro, banjo, guitar, upright bass and mandolin — brought the familiar cadence of country music, the energy of bluegrass reels and mixed it with a rock aesthetic, not only in sound but visuals.
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Known for over-the-top light shows, the band didn’t hold back for the outdoor set. A bank of red and purple lights flushed the stage in an almost unreal flood of colour punctuated by spliced spotlights and pulsating strobes.
“It’s a great pleasure and a great honour to be here,” said mandolin player Paul Hoffman, sharing that the group drove up from Phoenix for the festival. “It’s beautiful. You know this, but it’s our first time. It’s beautiful — it’s amazing. How many are here for the first time?”
A low but audible roar responded from the hill — a fun reminder of those experiencing the folk festival magic for the first time.
Demons brought more of the traditional bluegrass sound and energy before the group dialled it back for the slow and easy sway of the tongue-in-cheek number, I’ll Probably Kill You, and then a full shift into the indie-rock realm with Windshield. This first handful of songs gave a good demonstration of the diversity of the group’s sound.
Room without a Roof is an original from founding Greenysky member Dave Bruzza but could have been written by Lyle Lovett, and the band did pull out a surprising cover. The crowd slowly grew into a tizzy as they recognized Pink Floyd elements that took the shape of Time. With daylight all but gone as the song was played, the bright fushia gels and stripped spotlights shone out over the crowded hill bringing everyone into a bit of a temporary, psychedelic fold before the set wrapped up.
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Australian Steph Strings, who plays Saturday at 4:25 p.m. and the Quebecois folk group Le Vent du Nord, which performed earlier Friday, graced the main stage with mini sets while the iconic lantern parade snaked around the candlelit crowd and Fleet Foxes set up to close out the night.
The a cappella harmonies of the title track from the band’s breakout 2008 EP Sun Giant ushered in Fleet Foxes’ Edmonton debut. From there the band launched into newer material, first with the opening track of Shore, one of two albums released in 2021, followed by the hit single from the same album, Can I Believe You? While the harmonies didn’t play as large of a role as they do in older songs, the band brought along a trumpeter and trombone player and the horns were given centre stage here, a fantastic treat in the live setting.
And with a good dose of newer music, the pendulum swung back to the band’s origins where stacked harmonies dominated with an almost sacred sensibility. The hit parade started with back-to-back numbers from the band’s 2008 self-titled album, first He Doesn’t Know Why followed by White Winter Hymnal, both filled with oooohs and ohhhhs swooping and soaring through the night air. The latter was met with an eruption of cheers from the crowd, as was Mykonos, another one of Fleet Foxes’ best-known singles chalked full of signature elements such as choral-like vocals, keys, creative percussion and the brass additions to Morgan Henderson’s saxophone.
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The set then moved into Montezuma from 2011’s Helplessness Blues, followed later by Grown Ocean also from that album. Die-hard fans still on the hill opened and sang along to Blue Ridge Mountains as the band flung open the gates to big sounds and scope with deep percussion and the horns flaunting some unique personality.
Shore’s Going-to-the-Sun Road signalled a winding down of the set before singer Robin Pecknold, without breaking his acoustic strum, rolled right into Helplessness Blues that closed the night in grand style.
While there wasn’t a lot of banter, Pecknold noted there was a lot the band wanted to get through and they turned out everything they could in this chosen slot and offered many, many thanks before they departed.
jfeniak@postmedia.com
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