"Mom" a classy lady at a classy event!
If having the deep mud suck your shoes off as you struggle through the mire that was your camp site; if struggling to find a comfortable spot on that sodden blanket you threw on the ground before the torrential rains came down; if standing desperately in line for the overused and overflowing porta-potties are your experiences of attending a festival then you haven't been to the classy Wachusett Valley Folk Festival.
Brilliantly organized by Jean Syria and Denise Hurley and hosted by the Wachusett Village Inn this was festival living at its finest. Located in 100 acres of woodland the Inn is a full service resort hotel and conference center with 74 guest rooms and suites , several bars, a restaurant and not a single porta-potty in sight! This was definitely not your typical folk festival venue.
Located under the hotel's large function marquee with chairs and tables for the guests, the sizeable stage gave plenty of opportunity for bands to spread out and move around, while the semi-contained tent and up-close seating gave a feeling of genuine intimacy to the performances. Outside there was ample room on the lawn for several hundred people who in true folk festival tradition threw their blankets on the ground and positioned themselves in low profile camp chairs.
Fortunately the threatened thunder storms and showers found other locations to torment and the festival was rain free apart from a brief and light shower lasting just a few minutes, which caused an influx of people into the covered marquee making for an even cozier intimate atmosphere.
Left to right: Maura Kennedy, Chris Thompson and Pete Kennedy
The day was kicked off by MC Chris Thompson performing a short set in which she was joined on stage for several numbers by Pete and Maura Kennedy for a partial resurrection of The Strangelings.
Chris Thompson
Chris reminded us just how powerful and accomplished a singer she is by ending with a rousing and passionate a capella rendition of Amazing Grace.
Dave Fitzgibbons of the Rafters Band
Local husband and wife duo The Rafters (Miki Bryan and Dave Fitzgibbons), with their full band, followed with a toe tapping set, interspersed with some gentle melodies sung admirably by Miki.
Miki Bryan f the Rafters Band
They were joined on stage by audience members for a fun version of "California Dreaming" in which festival organizer, Denise Hurley, appeared to be in heaven as she played her Djembe
The Rafters Band with audience members sing California Dreaming
Meanwhile the Kennedy's were entertaining the kids and quite few adults at the family stage where there were copious amounts of balloons, crayons, coloring books, pens and painted faces.
Trina Hamlin
Next up was Trina Hamlin who mesmerized the audience with her heady brew of phenomenal blues harmonica, keyboard, acoustic guitar and of course a voice to die for. Her performance of 'Down to the Hollow" was a particularly powerful and heartfelt example of her impressive talent, while songs like "Stranger in my bed" showed her pensive and melodic side.
The Kennedy's returned to the stage for their solo set and again showed us why they have such a large and active following. Pete's guitar wizardry and Maura's vocals combined to entrance the swelling crowd. As always they provided great action shots for the photographers.
The Kennedy's rock it up
Hot on the heels of the Kennedy's, MacTalla Mor (The Great Echo) who's web-site describes them as an "earth shaking, dance making, ground breaking Celtic roots band" certainly lived up to their name and had the crowd on their feet in no time.
Patty Devlin Ofgang of MacTalla Mor heads into the audience
Their heavy driving beat and the sheer exuberance of Patty Devlin Ofgang waving her Bodhran in the air, soon enticed the crowd into a Celtic conga line that wove itself out of the marquee and across the lawn.
An occasional digression from the earth shaking beat was provided by the lilting Celtic vocals of Ilana Ofgang and her delicate keyboard work, but the band frequently returned to their compelling rock-style beat and excited the audience.
MacTalla Mor at full throttle
And no, despite many requests from the women in the audience, Levon and Jesse didn't reveal what was beneath their colorful kilts!
John Gorka
The elegant song-smith and performer John Gorka brought the audience back from their Celtic reverie with some very dry and self-effacing humor while he wooed them with some soulful and intimate ballads, sung in that deep resonant voice of his. A voice that just gets better and better. For a few final numbers John was joined on stage by Trina Hamlin and the audience certainly got on board with their finale of the old Curtis Mayfield hit, "People Get Ready There's a Train a Comin".
Gandalf Murphy
The night was admirably brought to a close by a magnificent performance by Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams. How this band manages to combine song styles as varied as Dylan, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and Tom Petty into their own unique sound is magical.
Sharkey McEwen of Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams
Listening to Gandalf sing I was immediately transported back to the honest and genuine sixties rock scene and could have sworn the band were performing cover songs from that era that were strangely infused with familiar American roots music. It was only when I really listened to the lyrics and heard words like "cell-phone" that I realized these were modern songs expertly penned by Gandalf (Joziah Longo).
Currently getting lots of radio play for their excellent new album The Great Unravel, this band is about to really break out. They are scheduled to play at the UK's huge Glastonbury Festival in 2010 alongside bands like Coldplay, Greenday and Radiohead.
Tink Lloyd of Gandalf Murphy and the Slambovian Circus of Dreams
They played favorites like Talking to the Buddha from their Flapjacks from the Sky album and Desire and Tink from the Great Unravel.
To placate the folk crowd whom Gandalf hinted were really rock fans with their folk clothes on they even played an excellent version of Donovan's "Catch the Wind".
I can't sign off without giving a mention to Lee Swenson from the Non-profit "Andrew's Helpful Hands" a great organization that helps families through bone marrow transplants. Lee worked tirelessly throughout the festival to sign people up as bone marrow donors and to raise money to pay the mortgages of families struggling financially through the challenges of cancer.
Jim Webster and his fine hand-made instruments
Also finally a mention for Jim Webster (Nashua River Instruments) who hand-makes some great string instruments, and his partner Gloria, a fellow Brit, who entertained with her remarkable hat and fluid dancing (she really knows how to enjoy the music)!
The irrepressable Gloria demonstrates one of Jim's hand-made instruments
To the sound guys who made it all sound so good, a huge thank you - you did a great job!
Finally an enormous thank you once again to Jean and Denise and the tireless team of volunteers without whom this would never happen. The choice of venue and the artist line-up made this the summer's classiest festival.
PS. Wachusett Village Inn provided a great venue and exquisite chili ! Thanks Laura Hume and team!
The challenges were once again presented by the light. There was no stage lighting apart from the tungsten ceiling lights and the semi-diffused light coming through the marquee walls. There was an additional challenge provided by the bright light coming through the windows directly behind the stage, which had the habit of totally confusing the camera's metering, causing it to expose for the window light thereby leaving the performer as a silhouette against the white background.
In the end I resorted to spot metering on the performer's face using a hand held light meter (Sekonic) and operated the camera on manual setting. As the day lengthened into evening I increased the ISO settings on the camera in steps to cope with the failing light.
I had pushed the ISO to the limits by the final act appeared, but fortunately they produced their own (minimal) tungsten lighting which enabled me to keep shooting.
Towards the end of the evening I settled for shooting RAW at ISO 6400 at f2.8 to f4.0 at speeds as low as 1/10sec. There was some noise and blur but it was within acceptable limits.
White balance was handled by the camera and tweaked in Adobe Lightroom for some of the shots. The slightly warm yellow case was left as is for some of the shots as I felt it added something to the shot.
I used two camera during the day and three lenses. Canon 5D and Canon 5D MKII. Canon L 70-200mm IS f2.8 lens and Canon L 24-105 IS Len, Sigma f2.8 15mm. The light meter is a Sekonic L558R.
Among other photographer's on the day were Jake Jacobson and DanTappen both of whom are fine gentlement and have some great photographs from the festival on their FaceBook pages.
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More photos from the festival can be found in the photo album to the right of this column.
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Ian Murray is available for portraits, head-shots, weddings and events.
Click here to Visit the Ian Murray Photography Web-site or call him on 781-340-0564
Click here to visit Ian Murray Photography on FaceBook
Click here to visit Ian's own FaceBook page
Wow....Love this...Thank you so much...My mom {Helen] is a star
Hope more people come next year if we do it,,.
Posted by: Jean Syria | 08/13/2009 at 11:24 AM
I can see you have good knowledge on the topic. I enjoyed the read. Keep up the updates.
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