Folk Music

Saturday afternoon, I went to the Delta Chelsea hotel on Gerrard to check out Winterfolk, a 3 day free music festival highlighting folk, blues, and root music. There were four venues within the hotel: the Monarch pub, the hotel cafeteria became the marketplace, a reception hall was the community room, and a listening room up on the 27th floor hosted the more intimate shows.

I was in the community room from 1 to 3 pm, listening to the best of Sarah's café, a pub on the Danforth that has an open mic Sunday afternoon. Each hour had 4 singers sitting together up on the small stage, showcasing their songs in round-robin fashion. The first group included Jo-Anne Park, Daniel McKenzie, Alan McKinley, and Mark Martyre. The second group had Caitlin Gallagher, Chris Scian, Frank Patrick, and Meghan Smith. Jo-Anne, Alan, Caitlin, and Meghan did mostly covers that were average, though the latter two also had some simple but original songs. Daniel, Mark, and Chris sang confessional songs mining the well-trodden ground of pop tropes, only occasionally having a novel or new lyric. Frank had the most well-received tunes, forgoing sad songs for up-tempo numbers. His experienced stage presence livened up his performance,  though his tendency to add comic sound effects got quickly tiresome. Caitlin generated the most buzz from the small crowd because her voice was remarkably strong and mature-sounding for an 11-year-old. She could benefit from some vocal training since it was a bit thin at the top end. It's encouraging that she is starting to shift from covers to original songs, since the novelty of precociousness won't last.

In her group, Caitlin sang only two songs because they ran out of time. Frank was apologetic since he was the last to perform. But the fault lies with the host. His inane chatter throughout the hour ate up the time she would have had. I looked over the acts in the other rooms but the impersonal and cavernous hotel experience felt disconnected from the spirit of a folk music festival. I left feeling vaguely dissatisfied, since I experienced nothing that was at all different from mainstream pop.