Friday at the Winnipeg Folk Festival is always the first full day, with daytime workshops and concerts taking place at the various smaller stages throughout the festival grounds. While the workshop idea isn't completely unique to Winnipeg, for many artists, it's not only a new idea but in some cases, even intimidating.
Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of the previous day -- especially with our Thursday choice for "Artist of the Day", Good Old War, leading off the night -- we arrived to Bird's Hill Park for Day 2 of the Winnipeg Folk Festival before the first notes chimed off the main stage.
Arriving to Bird's Hill Park and the Winnipeg Folk Festival grounds a bit late on the first night of the festival unfortunately meant missing some very talented artists in Snowblink and James Vincent McMorrow (luckily this wasn't our only opportunity to hear either of them, as they'll both be part of the "Your Indie Heart" workshop on Friday afternoon).
Despite its relatively small size, Winnipeg knows how to throw a summer party! From late June until the end of August, this prairie city known mostly for its cold winters and newly-returning hockey team comes alive with festival after festival celebrating music, theatre, and culture.
Saturday was a busy day for ShowbizMonkeys.com at the 2011 Winnipeg Folk Festival! We interviewed a couple critical and audience favourites -- Vancouver singer/songwriter Dan Mangan and Winnipeg folk-pop band Imaginary Cities.
Unfortunately, as we alluded to yesterday, there won't be any big posts for the next couple days from the Winnipeg Folk Festival, as the exhaustion (and let's face it, fun) of camping is taking up a lot of our time over the weekend.
Back in 1993, the iconic Canadian roots-rock band Blue Rodeo released their album Five Days in July, probably their most defining work in their nearly three decades as a band.
There are lots of bands and musicians out there who are really impressive recording artists, but maybe not the most exciting (or even very good) in a live setting. For some, it's just a case of utilizing a lot of great production that can't translate, while others are clearly aided in the studio and just can't cut it in on stage.
In the relatively short time he's been a full-time musician, singer/songwriter James Struthers has been compared to several established and popular artists. And while the comparisons may be fairly accurate, saying Struthers sounds like Jason Mraz or John Mayer doesn't fairly represent how fresh and original he and his music really is.
Dala had quite the year in 2009! Besides playing the Winnipeg Folk Festival (where ShowbizMonkeys.com got the chance to talk with them), they played seemingly ever other folk and bluegrass festival in Canada and the United States last year, steadily growing their fanbase on the way.
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