A review by Bernadette Moroney for the New Edinburgh Folk Club newsletter, June '97.
Many of you will be aware that the Pioneer Pog `n' Scroggin Bush Band were guests at the Australian National Folk Festival this Easter ('97). My daughter, Siobhán and I went with them both as supporters and myself in the role of (Whare Flat) Festival Director to suss out new talent that we might be able to afford for Whare Flat this year. Theirs is not a festival as we (in NZ) know it. The size of this festival is awe inspiring with 40,000 people having gone through the gates within two and a half days of a four day festival. In some ways this is a real asset because there is a huge number of events to choose from (600 guests) but in others it loses the wonderful atmosphere and friendliness that you get with a small festival. This is not a place where you let your child wander off to do her own thing without arranging a definite time and meeting place.
There are 14 venues operating concurrently; two of these are kids events, two are dance workshops , one is mostly dance performances and another is like a continuous blackboard concert although it's pretty much pre-arranged. All other venues are music of every country you can think of. This festival is very much a multi-cultural event and there were guests performing Aboriginal music and dance, Russian music, Greek music, Celtic music, Bush poetry to name but a few. The venues themselves are massive, with over a thousand people able to sit in one performance hall. This was great for dancing because there could be five hundred people in the room and you still didn't bump into anyone - not so great for timid performers tho'.
Within all of this it's amazing that the Pogs were even noticed but they were. They performed their first concert on Good Friday and then played for a dance that night. After these two events the organisers were impressed enough to ask them to prepare another concert performance for the Sunday on one of the main stages just prior to James Keelaghan (one of the big names on the programme from Canada). Interest was also shown by the organisers of the Port Fairy Festival held in Melbourne each year and the possibility of them returning as guests for this was discussed with the band. The following day the band performed for the children and introduced some of them and their parents to Maori pronunciation and taught them a Maori song as well as a simplified barndance. Then the concert on the big stage. This went very well and they drew in quite a large crowd. As they were not on the programme for this event and the organisers have no way of publishing programme changes this had to be done simply by people hearing them play as they walked pass the venue, so it wasn't an easy task. They even got an encore which I thought was quite an achievement since it was holding up the appearance of James Keelaghan who a number of people had already arrived to hear.
The highlights of the festival for me were Naroo (an Aboriginal dance group from Sydney) who were absolutely amazing. At the end of one of their performances to show that they could do something other than traditional dance they gave a performance to rap music and they were very impressive. Zulya was a very petite Russian singer who could at times sound like a nightingale singing and at others like Ivan Rebrof (I found it hard to believe that such a tiny woman could have such powerful lungs). James Keelaghan was terrific. I don't think his CD's do him justice because he's a powerful performer on stage with great charisma and his ability to work and audience are not obvious with recorded music. The Three Shielas were Judy Small, Kavisha Mazella and Bronwyn Calcutt. Often when a number of great singers get together you get a watered down performance where no-one's style comes through.
This wasn't the case here as they performed a variety of each other music with the other two backing. This led to an extremely varied and interesting concert. Mike saw Kavisha as the leader of the Italian Chorus and he was equally impressed by this performance. Lunasa were a stunning group from Ireland who managed to inspire me again about Celtic music. One of the main things about this festival is that so much was happening all the time that it was easy to get blasé about performances and everywhere you walked there were buskers who were often as good as the main artists but you were inclined to think "oh yeah, more of that" about stuff that would stop you dead if you encountered it in the streets over here.
We had a wonderful time in general and came away exhausted and I was satiated although Mike says he could live like that always. I collected a number of business cards from people who are prospects for, and enthusiastic about, our festival. The question will be whether we can afford them. One thing in our favour is that with so few guests we can treat them like royalty and look after them well. Over there, the accommodation for guests is meagre and food is not provided. Everything must be bought and this gets very expensive. Oh, a part I forgot to mention is that outside the venues is like a constant market day, with vendors of all sorts selling their wares. Also the dancers also seem to wear their costumes permanently which although I thought this rather an affectation definitely added colour to the spectacle.
We'll see what we can manage.
Bernadette
Whare Flat Festival Director.