Rockford folk festival

[benjami...@twty.chi.il.us]

We spend yesterday at the Rockford (Illinois) folk festival, now
renamed as the Rockford Folk Music, Dance, and Blues Festival.
There was, however, no organized dance performance this year.

After cancellation of the two+ day festival after twelve years,
Rock River Friends of Folk Music came up with a new one-day
festival format in a new location, Davis Park, on the banks of the
Rock River in downtown Rockford. The park is small, but there
were three "workshop" stages from 11 p.m. to 3 p.m., a one hour
break, and a main stage concert from 4 p.m. to midnight.

{An aside: If you attend a folk festival, volunteer. They always
need help. I live in the Chicago suburbs, and drive 75 miles to
get to the Rockford festival. Last year my daughters Rochelle and
Irene and I and Rochelle's fiance worked in the Festival Store.
This year Irene found two friends who wanted to go and the four of
us worked in the Festival Store practically the whole day. We had
a lot more fun than those out on the grass. The store was located to
one side of the main stage, perhaps 100 feet away, with a fair view
of the stage. We had no problem hearing.

Four members of _Boiled in Lead_ were at a "workshop" in mid-
afternoon, under a small tent, totally acoustic. The music was
"loud", but being unamplified, was not too loud, and it was
excellent. One band was over-amplified, and I was really worried
as we moved into the two final acts, _Boiled in Lead_ and _Siegel
Schwall Blues Band_, but for whatever reason, though electrified
and amplified, they were not as overpoweringly loud.

_Boiled in Lead's_ set showed why this group is so well regarded.
Joe Kessler and his electric blue electric viola are charged with
energy. Their combination of ethnic musics from various parts of
the world with shifting polyrhythms is exciting, if not exactly
"traditional folk music".

BTW, the crowd was blown away by Radoslav Lorkovic. We sold so
many CDs and tapes that we blew Radoslav's mind! His _Blues in C
Minor_ was especially wonderful.

Other performers included Joel Mabus, Small Potatoes (Rich and
Jackie hope to have their new album out by mid-September), Magpie,
Betsy Kaske & Dan Voll, Grande Chien, Fernando Jones, Outskirts,
and Kathy O'Hara & Diana Laffey.

There's a possibility that the festival may move back to the Midway
Village venue it has used in the past and be expanded to a full
weekend event next year.

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