In September, I got to go to two of my favorite music festivals: the Wheatland Music Festival in mid-Michigan and the Lotus World Music Festival in Bloomington, IN. They are very different festivals -- at Wheatland you camp with 10,000 others on former farmland, while Lotus happens in various venues in downtown Bloomington -- but they have one thing in common: a consistently excellent lineup of artists. Here are a few that caught my ear:
The Freight Hoppers play old-time music (acoustic stringband music rooted in Celtic music) that is hard-driving and high-energy. The bass, banjo, guitar and fiddle players launched into tune after tune that kept my toes tapping. I love this music: it's so fun to clog and contra dance to, fun to play, and it lifts my spirits. And the Freight Hoppers were electric!
Wayne Hancock kept me dancing. He calls himself "the undisputed king of Juke Joint Swing -- that alchemist’s dream of honky-tonk, western swing, blues, Texas rockabilly and big band" and he's not exaggerating. Hancock turns his back on the slick mainstream version of country, favoring a more stripped-down sound that's full of energy.
Frigg plays string folk music from Finland & Norway, led by four fiddles that sound amazing together. This music is clearly how people from that part of the world stay warm, as it's high-energy stuff. The band was clearly having a great time on stage, and the enthusiasm was infectious.
Nawal hails from the Comoros Islands, in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa. I couldn't understand a word she sang, as she mostly sings in languages I don't speak. But that let me sit back and just soak in her voice, and the atmosphere created by the other instruments in her quartet. Her songs weren't quite like anything else I've heard, and it left me wanting more.
None of these artists has appeared on Cityfolk's stages yet, but I hope we can change that in the near future! What live music has left you fired up lately?
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