Record crowd for fest

By Dan Hilborn
Published Aug. 17, 2005


While the final attendance figures have yet to be determined, organizers of the sixth annual Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival are ecstatic about a record turnout and are now considering plans to expand the event over a full weekend in the future.

"It certainly was a successful weekend," Mayor Derek Corrigan said of the festival that attracted at least 4,500 paid music- lovers and up to 1,000 more children and others.

"Our partners are strongly supportive and certainly the response I've been hearing is that people had a wonderful time," Corrigan said. "I think council should continue on and keep building the festival. In fact, we may even consider expanding it in the future."

According to Alan Scales, one of the key city staff organizers of the event, the early estimate of 4,500 attendees is expected to rise when the final numbers are known later this week.

And from the fanciful folk music of the Wailin' Jennys to the full-out funk of the Neville Brothers, the crowd danced, cheered and called out for more on one of the finest days of summer.

There were many highlights to the day.

Nicky Mehta of the Wailin' Jennys got things off to a lighthearted start when she explained how she wrote her first folk song. "I threw in a couple of trees and the wind and asked a couple of philosophical questions that couldn't be answered and - lo and behold - I had a folk song," she said.

Mem Shannon got the crowd on its feet when he ripped into his own style of classic Louisiana blues. Featuring music from his latest CD, I'm From Phunkville, the former cab driver picked up a whole lot of new fans at his stop in Burnaby.

Lhasa de Sela, who came out in a slinky black evening dress and sang mostly in French and Spanish, kept the audience spellbound with her sultry vocals and the English language introductions to her music.

"The first time I sang this song was in a field with cows," she said of A Small Song. "When all the cows came towards me to listen, I knew I was onto something."

The liveliest act of the day was Johnny Clegg, who danced up a storm with members of his bands Jaluka and Savuka while singing songs of hope, love and unity.

But the highlight of the day was clearly the Neville Brothers, who brought virtually every fan in the park to their feet with their soul-stirring music.

"My absolutely favourite moment was when the Neville Brothers did their encore," said Scales. "When Aaron started to sing Amazing Grace, he held the opening notes for so long, the entire park went silent - not quiet, I mean absolutely silent.

"It was just magical and an expression of the power of art, the power of music and the power of a genius talent and his voice," Scales said. "That's one moment you can only find at a festival when 5,000 people are magically hypnotized by a single note."

Corrigan said that city hall will review any noise complaints, parking problems and other possible impacts on nearby residents before any decision is made on the future of the festival.

"We're going to take stock of what happened this summer and look at how things worked out," he said. "We want to make sure we're not adversely affecting any residents. And make sure we've been as good a neighbour as we can be, too."

If the festival is expanded, Corrigan said he'd like to see more world-calibre artists invited to the show - and he specifically named two of his favourites, Van Morrison and Bonnie Raitt. He also said that the free Vancouver Symphony Orchestra performance may have to be moved to a separate weekend.