2013 Greenbelt Harvest Picnic, August 31, 2013

The forecast had been showing possible thunderstorms all week, but a shift in the weather saw the day break warm with clear blue skies for the third year in a row. By the time the first acts took the stage at noon, it was looking to be about as perfect a day for watching music in the outdoors as you could imagine and the grassy field at Christie Lake Conservation Area was fuller than I’d have imagined based on previous years.

The festival was opened by local foursome Harlan Pepper who delivered a fine set of material from their debut album Young & Old with the twangy banjo of their hit Great Lakes winning over the crowd and marking them as a band to watch out for in the future. The band was followed by the soul filled blues of Harrison Kennedy. Kennedy’s a blues traditionalist, and delivered a rich set of material that saw toes tapping and the audience standing. Kennedy’s set was followed by a solid performance from Pegi Young & the Survivors.

Martha Wainwright took the stage next. Wainwright was a late addition to the festival and a welcome one. The first edition of the Picnic saw Emmylou Harris pay a touching tribute to Wainwright’s recently deceased mother Kate McGarrigle. Wainwright delivered a solid acoustic set and charmed the audience with her sense of humour, saying that “Some of these songs track the difficulties of marriage. Luckily, my husband doesn’t pay attention to my lyrics.” Wainwright was followed by Basia Bulat who delivered a solid round of “…folk and roll.”

By this time the Picnic’s front of house stage was in full force as well and had delivered short sets by Lanois, Dawn & Marra and others. While the concept a “‘tweener” performances isn’t unique to the Harvest Picnic the format here is quite a bit different. The smaller stage is thrust into the audience in the manner of a Shakespearean theatre near the sound board, giving the audience a chance to get up close and personal with acts. It works exceptionally well. It’s hard to believe that more festivals haven’t stolen this idea yet–it’s genius.

Calling Hamilton the “spiritual home of both of our albums” (both of which were recorded at the local Catherine North Studios)  Luke Doucet & Melissa McLelland of Whitehorse took the stage and delivered what was easily the best performance of the day so far. Its most charming moment for me wasn’t on the stage though: it came from watching an eight year old girl in purple Converse high tops sing along to the set’s opener Devil’s Got a Gun. Despite having been on the road pretty steadily for almost two years, the band shows no signs of fatigue. Time on the road seems to only make them better.

With the sun starting its descent, Belgian mulit-instrumentalist and singer Trixie Whitley kicked off the early evening portion of the event. Whitley sings with Lanois’ Black Dub project and has a fine solo career going as well. Watching Whitley perform is hard to describe: she’s got a powerful voice capable of singing in a wide range of styles and she uses it to good effect. Whitley’s full set saw her playing both guitar and keyboards while performing songs that ranged in tone from quiet and introspective to fast paced loud blues tinged rockers. Whitley unleashed that voice on the crowd like a force of nature, and the effect was like a lightning strike–immediate attention and complete focus was demanded (and received) from the entire audience.

Juno award winning Hamilton locals The Arkells were up next. The reaction from the crowd made it obvious that the Hometown band had brought out a significant gathering of fans. It quickly became clear why: the five member band ran through a high energy set of solid rock and roll that pretty clearly establishes them as an up and coming Canadian band to watch. The band showed their sense of humour by launching into a cover version of Neil Young’s Ohio mid-set: it was a nice call out to the last minute cancellation by Young’s band, and it wouldn’t be the last. If you’re a Tokyo Police Club fan, you owe it to yourself to check this band out.

With the setting sun’s long rays reaching out into the audience Emmylou Harris took the stage. Emmylou’s played the picnic every year and while previous sets focused on her Wrecking Ball collaboration with Lanois, tonight promised something different. Accompanied by the very stylish Malcolm Burn–the producer of her Red Dirt Girl album–Emmylou wasted no time launching into a wide ranging career spanning set that included Love Hurts, Red Dirt Girl, Orphan Girl and the more recent The Road. Harris’ voice is as beautiful as its ever been, and I spent most of the set standing farther back from the stage just letting that sound wash over me on a beautiful clear summer southern Ontario evening. It was pure magic.

A short moody and ethereal front of house performance from the fantastic Rocco Deluca was quickly followed by Gordon Lightfoot. Welcomed on stage by a standing ovation from the crowd the 74 year old singer wasted no time launching into his set. The singer’s trademark baritone voice sounded fantastic. With an enormous catalogue of songs to choose from its was nice to hear the legend sing classics like The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and A Painter Passing Through early in the set. After as beautiful a rendition of If You Could Read My Mind as I’ve ever heard Lightfoot paused to thank the audience–half of which was on its feet by this point. “I’d like to thank Mr. Lanois…and Mr. Young…for inviting me to this show.” he said, with a twinkle in his eye. This received a massive round of applause, and left little doubt that the Picnic had taken Young’s cancellation in stride.

Lightfoot’s set continued and included Carefree Highway, Cotton Jenny, Ribbon of Darkness and Sundown. The singer introduced Early Morning Rain as a song that “You might say got my career started.” The song’s been covered by numerous artists and the gracious songwriter talked about being asked how he feels about cover versions, saying that he’d “…never heard a cover he didn’t like..” The resounding applause from the audience at the end of his set brought Lightfoot back to the stage. “You can all sit down now,” he said, “We were going to come back anyway” before his single song encore. It’s nice to know that fifty years into his career Lightfoot’s as sharp as he ever was and can still deliver a fantastic sounding set.

A short break ensued before Daniel Lanois took the stage with bassist Jim Wilson to his left and Steve Nistor on drums to his immediate right. What followed was a bit more than an hour of music that served as a solid course in rock & roll school. The quiet opening notes of The Maker built into a solid crescendo that kept going with The Messenger and the fantastic soulful Duo Glide. Acadie’s gorgeous opening track Still Water was dedicated to local bluesman Derek Miller. After a quiet, introspective turn that saw Lanois at the pedal steel accompanied only by the sound of the crickets in the conservation area, the band picked up the tempo again and Black Dub’s Ring the Alarm quickly morphed into an extended jam session that clocked in at about eight minutes before finally winding down.

With the evening coming towards an end Lanois invited Trixie Whitley back to the stage for a powerful, soulful rendition of Surely and Nomad. The stage slowly grew as Harrison Kennedy returned to lead the star studded band followed by Emmylou performing the Gram Parsons classic Hickory Wind. Rocco Deluca led the band out to the end of the night with a band that included Lanois’ full trio, Malcolm Burns on keyboard and Emmylou Harris, Trixie Whitley and Basia Bulat for backup singers. It was nice to see the traditional festival finale gather Lanois and his friends again.

There’s no denying that the last minute cancellation by Young loomed over this third edition of the Harvest Picnic at the start of the day. When Gordon Lightfoot–who replaced Young–took the stage I headed for the middle of the audience to watch most of the set. It was pretty clear from that vantage point that the huge crowd was just enjoying a fantastic day of live music. This doesn’t mean some people weren’t a few people still upset about Young not being there. It was pretty clear by this time that most of the crowd of about 9,000 in attendance were just enjoying a fantastic day of live music–one of the best I’ve ever taken in.

The measure of a festival is a complicated thing. It’s a interesting mix of factors that make an all day outdoor show great, and it’s the sort of thing that, as Emmylou Harris reminded me, you need to build over time “…so that people will put it in their calendar every year.”

By any combination of factors, this festival has become that kind of event. With fantastic sound (the best I’ve ever heard at an outdoor event,) that brilliant front of house stage sitting right in the middle of the audience, incredible weather, a beautiful venue in the Christie Lake Conservation area, local farmers on site selling fresh fruits and vegetables and a consistently top tier lineup of musical talent the festival has delivered the best single day of live music in Canada three years in a row. Plan now for 2014, because with a track record like this it’s guaranteed to be worth going.