Well naturally on the final day of Folklife I managed to drag myself out the door at a timely manner. I had a good reason, the “Big Jewish Show” began at eleven at the Bagely Wright Theater and I wanted to catch the whole thing (as I’ve said before I like Klezmer.) I got there just in time and it was as good as usual with my favorite being a group called Klezkids. It was a full orchestra with a girls chorus which kept me thinking of a Yiddish version of the opening song from Lilo and Stitch. The kids sounded very new at singing and the way the mics were set up their voices didn’t hold up against the instrumental as it should have but still there was a haunting honesty about their performance that I found very appealing. One of the girls, an eight year old in a purple dress performed the bottle dance which was extremely cute… Somehow I think using a plastic bottle of mineral water somehow effects the context.
When I got out Nothing was really on my list for things I wanted to see so most of the afternoon was spent people watching, drawing, browsing in craft booths and catching of music. In this way the day went fairly quickly. I ran into a few friends and had some nice conversations. I finished the day listening to a very good zydeco band called the New Iberian Zydeco Blues Band and a “Accoustic Grassrock” Band called Creeping time. After that I headed home.
All in all I enjoyed my annual Folklife marathon as much as any other. This year the long weekend seemed to go by especially fast and I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps it was because there weren’t quite as many bands that fit my specific tastes so I spent more time drifting through the festival… but not in a bad way.
