North Country Fair (Stuck in the Mud)

We had just pulled into North Country Fair in a place called, get this, Driftpile, Alberta.

Three-some hours north of Edmonton,
in b&% -f$@k nowhere, our car hurtled into a massive field with stages and vendors, down an earthen trail with a warning sign!

We tore up to the stage at 5:30 (having been delayed by a $70 speeding ticket), just in time for our 6pm Main Stage time slot.

I would like to say we blew the crowd away, but it was the second slot of the show, and the crowd was very thin. Thin, that is, for folk fest of some 6,000 odd people. So, there were still a few hundred listeners.

The real problem was the sound. We have no idea how it sounded to the audience, but feedback troubled us on stage. Most sound guys still don*t seem to know how to mix vocals, with effects, and often don*t take the advice that would make a difference. Then there is the cardinal rule:

Do not anger your sound tech!

So, we often keep our mouths shut and let the techs skill or incompetence speak for itself. (Sadly, a listener rarely thinks: *Wow! That show had a bad sound tech.* No, rather, listeners think, *that band didn*t sound very good.*)

The stage was good though, and the stage crew were very tight and efficient, even on the Friday evening. North Country Fair was a well-organized, and altogether awesome event to be part of. Here is a pic of the main stage!

The side stages were also fun. There were two:
1. The Firefly Ranch
and
2. Shady Grove
(which we decided to call Shady Thicket, lovingly after the Christopher Walken sketch *Colonol Angus.*)

We have some video footage of our mainstage show, and two camera angle of nearly our entire Shady Thicket show. And a brief, low quality, but very demonstrative bit of footage of our 3am Sunday night volunteer party show. A great version of Jethro Tull*s Acres Wild came together that intoxicated night!