Orillia’s Mariposa Folk Festival has continued its long tradition of bringing a multitude of impressive more-than-just-folk musical acts to the big festival in the small southern Ontario city.
The 65th annual Mariposa Folk Festival took place in the town’s Tudhope Park from Friday, July 4 to Sunday, July 6, with more than a little something for just about everyone, and was a sellout success by Sunday.
As always, with the event’s many stages (eight this year), plus events including yoga and craft sessions for all ages, vendors, and food trucks, it would be completely impossible for one person to catch all of the action that goes on over the course of the weekend event, but with many of the artists performing multiple sets on different stages, festival goers stood a good chance of being able to catch all their favourites in attendance at least once.
Performers ranged from open mic acts – with one stage offering the opportunity for attendees to sign up and perform a small set of their own – and local bands, to long standing legends including Ron Sexsmith, and children’s performer Sharon Hampson, of Elephant Show/Sharon, Lois, and Bram fame, who purportedly originally linked up as a trio through an educational music program organized by the Mariposa Folk Festival back in the ‘70’s!
I signed up to volunteer as a videographer for the event, as a fun way to get involved and make use of some of the skills I picked up in my journalism school days, while taking in some great musical acts. My shifts were Saturday and Sunday, but I drove down Friday night to pick up my wrist band, meet my team leads, and take in some of the shows, of course!
I timed my arrival perfectly to coincide with The Paper Kites performance on the main stage, known as the Lightfoot Stage (in honour of Gordon Lightfoot). The Paper Kites hail from Australia and have a soft, poetic, almost lullaby-esque sound to them which soothes my heart, whether singing sad lyrics, as in their song “Paint”, or happy, as in “Bloom”, (both of which are great songs which you should check out if unfamiliar with the band).
Following The Paper Kites’ set, I made my way to the Pub Stage to try to check out The East Pointers, only to find most people in the park, it seemed, had the same idea, as the fenced-off pub area was at capacity before I got there, with a long line of people at the entrance hoping to get in, or at least stand outside the gate and listen. I think The East Pointers were the surprise stars of this year’s festival in a way, as both of their performances drew much larger crowds than it seemed the festival organizers had anticipated. I’m thinking they may be back as main stage performers in the not-too-distant future.
I wasn’t too disappointed though, as I knew they were performing another set later in the weekend, sharing the stage with festival darlings My Son the Hurricane, who I saw perform at my first Mariposa back in 2019 (which was also the last time I attended the festival, until this year, but more on that later). Plus it meant I got to catch all of Langhorne Slim’s set, which I knew was going to be great.
I met Langhorne, a.k.a. Sean Scolnick, once before, in 2017, down at the Newport Folk Festival, in Newport, Rhode Island, in the United States, where he performed at a festival pre-party. A guy I met in line waiting to get in seemed to know him (or at least knew where to go to chat with him) and when the show was done he brought me around to the back of the building and introduced me, which was pretty rad. (I also got a hug from Charles Bradley that night, who blew me away with his performance at the same party, particularly of the song “Changes”, originally by Black Sabbath. Bradley sadly passed away later that year.) It was a memorable night, and so I was excited to catch Langhorne Slim perform live again. He’s definitely a natural entertainer, and draws a crowd with his enthusiastic performances. If you don’t know who he is before seeing him, you won’t soon forget him after. He even took it upon himself to hop down off the main stage and sing one of his songs while mingling with the crowd, sharing handshakes, hugs and just true authentic humanity with the crowd gathered to see him; interacting with as many people as he could, before returning to the stage to close out the song. On his second-to-last song, the high e string on his guitar broke, but he kept playing like a true pro, only looking like he might have wanted to smash the instrument for a split second at the end of the song. His very last song didn’t include himself on guitar, so it all worked out in the end anyway (and there was no guitar smashing, which was definitely for the best in the long run. It looked like a nice guitar).
Friday’s headliners were Canadian rockers, The Sheepdogs, who played for an hour and a half, despite the swarms of bugs that came out as the sun went down. I don’t think anyone in the crowd was getting bitten too badly by the bugs, but the band, unfortunately, suffered as the main feast to the flies, which admittedly did look kind of pretty, lit up and dancing like stars under the bright stage lights, but I’m sure were VERY annoying to deal with. I remember the same scene watching Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit perform when they headlined one of the nights of the 2019 Mariposa Festival. Sheepdogs’ lead singer Ewan Currie did comment on the bugs, but the band continued to perform like the true professionals they are, displaying their impressive talent. The Sheepdogs have played the Kee before, but I’ve never gone to see them, as the shows I believe usually either sold out before I got around to checking for tickets, or just weren’t in the budget for me at the time. And even knowing that they’re a solid, popular rock band, I didn’t realize the extent of their talent as musicians until seeing them live that night. Although I was sort of near the front of the crowd for the performance, I was way off to one side, so I didn’t have the best angle for capturing pictures, as there was a tall fence and one of the big Mariposa side stage flags kind of screening my view. It was fine for watching the show, but definitely didn’t make for great photos. Luckily for me, however, one of the people with a media access pass had me pass my phone to him through the fence, so he could snap some picture for me, unobstructed, front and centre.
Saturday and Sunday I got to work capturing videos of the crowd starting a little after noon, so I didn’t have as much time to sit and enjoy any of the shows, or catch the little details of what was happening with the performers as much. I’m not complaining though; I had a lot of fun, and was able to make time to see some special performances.
On Saturday, I had my first shift as a camera operator, and with this I had an all-access pass, and was able to get into all of the venues-within-the-venue to capture footage at whatever stage I wanted, so I of course jumped at the opportunity to capture footage of The East Pointers’ performance that day, which was just as popular as the day before, and I knew would also give me some great B-roll for the festival organizers. This time they were setup at the Bohemian Stage, which was also fenced off, down by the shore of Lake Couchiching. The popularity of this performance was likely amplified by the fact that many people also wanted to catch – and dance to – My Son the Hurricane, as well as The East Pointers, and fortunately there was lots of room for people to sit around the outside of the fenced off area to still hear, and in some cases see, the show. The set started out with high-energy instrumental pieces by each band, and continued to bring the energy with light-hearted dance-inducing songs throughout. As it was wrapping up, I noticed a guy on the other side of the fence trying to capture a photo with his phone, and looking disappointed that he couldn’t seem to get a good one, so much like the media personnel had done for me the day before, I had him pass me his phone through the fence so I could run up to the stage and capture a few close-ups for him – which he appreciated just as much, if not more, as I had when it was done for me. I was quite happy to have been able to pay it forward!
Following that show, I made my way to the main stage to catch Basia Bulat’s beautiful, bewitching voice and unique, Polish-inspired, folk-personified performance. I have been a fan of hers for at least the last decade and was quite happy to finally have the chance to catch her live. (She’s played many places throughout Ontario over the years, but the timing or location never quite worked out for me, until that day.) Unfortunately a heavy rainstorm hit partway through her set, and as I was operating a fairly expensive, NOT-water-resistant camera, I quickly made my way to our little media-team tent to keep myself, and it, dry. Bulat finished her performance, however, and many in the crowd stuck around for the whole set, in spite of the drenching downfall. Our team waited the rain out in the tent for close to an hour, though the performances continued pretty much as regularly scheduled, but after quite some time we decided to call it a day, knowing we had the day tomorrow – weather pending, of course – to capture more B-roll.
The rain did ease up, and eventually stop, and as the temperature that day was somewhere above the 30 degree Celsius mark, it wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened, but by the time we had called it a day it was about 7 p.m. The only other group I had really wanted to see that day was the headliner, Iron & Wine, but at this point I was soaked (with sweat, not rain), and sore from running around capturing footage all day, and I had an hour drive home, with my dog waiting to be let out – and me knowing I had to do it all over again tomorrow – so I decided to drive home, eat something, and walk the dog. I told myself, if I really wanted, I had enough time to do all of that and come back for the 10 p.m. performance – but I knew it wasn’t likely going to happen, and it didn’t. I can only imagine they put on an excellent set though.
Sunday there were less performances I was personally eager to make sure I caught, though I did want to see Benjamin Doerksen, as I had heard him perform a little bit from a distance on Friday night as a “tweener,” (which is what they were calling acts who performed a small set on the main stage between the main acts) and I wanted to hear more.
Doerksen’s full set was really good; he has a solid, powerful voice and he and his bandmates sound like seasoned pros together. I think he has what it takes to become a big name in the Canadian country/folk circuit, which he already seems to be making great strides in.
Rock/folk artist Hayden, whose music I’d come to know as a teenager, with a number of songs I was quite into for a period of time, also played Sunday, so I wanted to catch some of his set as well. It was of course a nice, mellow set, and the crowd loved him, with many fans from his more than 30 years of making music, collected on the grass, mesmerized as he told stories about and through his songs.
After Hayden’s set I didn’t have any specific agenda, other than to keep capturing video, but I could hear a big, dance-inducing beat coming from across the park, and just had to follow the sound. There, at the Bohemian Stage I caught a set called “Folkin’ Rude Boys” which was a collaboration of two bands, being Danny Rebel & the KGB, and Melbourne Ska Orchestra. If you couldn’t guess from the title, they were putting on a clinic in ska music – and the crowd was loving it. This was the biggest crowd of dancing people I saw the entire time. (To be fair though, both of these bands had performed elsewhere earlier in the festival, and I hadn’t caught those sets, but I bet there was lots of dancing happening then too.) During this particular performance, they were talking a bit about how they came to find ska music for themselves, and as bands, and then giving a bit of a history/music lesson on where it came from, and the fundamentals of playing it. It was a really fun set, and these are two bands I would definitely recommend checking out if ever given the opportunity.
After that I wandered over to where another huge crowd was gathered at the Pub Stage and caught a bit of Corook’s set. I have to be honest here, when I saw Corook on the schedule, I didn’t know who they were, but once I started listening I recognized them as being a social media star (as far as I know) with viral hits including “It’s OK” (you know, the one that goes “hey, hey, it’s ok; everybody feels kinda weird some days”) and “If I Were a Fish”. It was definitely a beloved act by many fans, and I caught a few different people asking to take a photo with them a little later on in the day.
I then caught a bit of some of the big Sunday acts on the main stage, including Ron Sexsmith, and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, while I captured some final footage for the day.
I finished my volunteer hours at 7 p.m., and went to sit in my car for a few minutes, contemplating if I should stay and enjoy a little of the festival in my free time, or just head home and rest my weary bones. Fortunately I convinced myself I should definitely take just a little time to enjoy myself and take in the festival without any responsibilities, before heading back to my regular job the next day, so I headed back in to catch Born Ruffians before hitting the road. I definitely made the right choice, as it was a fun, rocking, free-spirited boost of energy, and just what I needed to wake myself up for the drive home.
The festival was a huge success as always, and I was happy to be a part of it. My first time volunteering was back in 2019, on the greening crew, where I helped ensure people put their waste in the right receptacles to keep the least amount possible from going into the actual garbage, making maximum use of the compost and recycling options.
Mariposa is a green-focused festival, in that they require all of their food vendors to use compostable containers and cutlery. This year they were able to divert 90% of festival waste from the landfill, so I’d say that’s a huge success, and they had refillable water stations throughout the grounds, which was especially necessary given the heat of the weekend.
There were also booths of all kinds of information and groups, including mental health assistance, Parks Canada, Simcoe County Black Coalition, LGBTQ+ Simcoe County, Indigenous activist groups, and more.
All-in-all, it really is such a well-run festival, which is no surprise, considering this was its 65th year; you don’t last that long without the people at the helm knowing a thing or two about what they’re doing. I’m sure lessons are passed on to younger generations throughout the years, as more than 700 volunteers help keep the festival going, and many, I’m sure, are enthusiastic to ensure it continues to be a success for many years to come.
I can’t wait to see who they line up for next year, but in the meantime, I’m already headed to another festival this weekend, being the first ever Buddies Fest, down in Tillsonburg, Ontario, and I hope to post an update on that soon!
Lisa goes to shows 