Tag Archives: CityFolk

Not Just Nostalgia

Led Zeppelin is dead. Robert Plant rocks on. Sunday night at Cityfolk the former Zepp vocalist performed a delicate balancing act, giving the fans the old songs from the seventies that they craved while showcasing his newer material. Songs like “The May Queen” and the title track to his latest work, “Carry Fire,” were blended […]

Friday Night Rocked

I missed most of the music on the nineties. When you lived in Pembroke, Ontario, there wasn’t much choice. The local radio played (as I remember it) country music. Which means, in those pre-internet days, all I knew about the band Live was what I read. I could perhaps have named you a tune or […]

A Whole Lotta Love

Cityfolk starts today, Ottawa’s annual folk music extravaganza. For me it’s a trip down memory lane, as Robert Plant will close the festival Sunday night. You may not think of the former Led Zeppelin frontman as a folk artist, but the “folk” in Cityfolk has some elasticity. After all, the last time I saw Plant […]

CityFolk IV – Wet Sheepdogs

I love The Sheepdogs. I hate the Sheepdogs. I’m ambivalent about The Sheepdogs. I can’t make up my mind. The Sheepdogs, if you are not aware, are a rock band from Saskatchewan that first came to prominence in their attempts to win a contest for independent bands, with the prize being a spot on the […]

CityFolk III – Why Bother?

Maybe it’s being in a crowd that does it. Or a general narcissism in our culture. But it was definitely in evidence Friday as Van Morrison delivered a strong set at CityFolk 2015. This was the big event of the festival. There were more people there than the previous two nights combined. Anticipation was high, […]

Cityfolk II – Confessions Of A Music Junkie

Once upon a time music pretty much defined my life. From waking to sleeping I was always listening to something. That isn’t the case anymore. If I have the radio on I am more likely to be listening to public affairs programming than to music. I still listen to a lot of music though; I […]

CityFolk I – Opening Night

I’m not sure how this qualifies as folk music. The Tubes were the first act on the main stage at CityFolk 2015, the Ottawa Folk Festival with a new name and location. I have no emotional investment in The Tubes. I have never owned any of their records, never seen them live before and would […]