This is a good time to reflect on our festival appearances over the summer.
First off the mark was Toronto’s City Roots Festival, following up on our show there last year. City Roots takes place in the historic distillery district, and the venue, the crowd, the weather (and the distilled products) were all first rate. This year, Paul was featured as both writer and musician, which was nice of them. Speaking of Paul, his latest novel The Ravine has just been “long-listed” for the Giller Prize…
In July we performed at Mariposa, on the shores of beautiful Lake Simcoe at Orillia. I referred to Mariposa a few posts ago so you can read about it below, but months later it’s still a great memory.
Next was The Ottawa Blues Festival. We had a wonderful audience at one of their huge outdoor stages, but we also spent a lot of time in audiences, listening to Cindy Cashdollar, Redd Volkaert and other killer acts. In addition, the festival presented the Porkbelly “trio” in a lovely, small indoor theatre. This acoustic group consists of Paul, Rebecca and - on guitar instead of drums - Martin.
Next up was London’s Home County Festival. By all accounts our main stage evening show went well, but we were mostly looking forward to what might transpire at the next day’s workshops. The first, a blues event, put us on stage with Jackie Washington and Mose Scarlett. The second, a Willie P. Bennett tribute, paired us with Stephen Fearing and Tom Wilson from Blackie and the Rodeo Kings plus Tony Quarrington and other special guests, and this is when the rainy weather Porkbelly had been dodging all summer finally found us. Even that, though, could not dampen the enthusiasm of the London audience. They stayed, they clapped, they sang along.
The month of August took us to eastern Ontario and Clarendon’s Blue Skies Festival on Hwy 7 west of Ottawa. This happy hippie event is something to behold, with all 2,000 audience members actually camping on-sight every August holiday weekend. Blue Skies was similar to London’s Home County Festival in the following respects: we played our regular set to a large crowd; we participated in a great Willie P. tribute; it rained. It actually rained an incredibly great deal, but again, nobody complained.
Our final festival engagement consisted of three nights at The Forest Festival. This was a Words & Music affair, presented in an historic logging museum in the Haliburton Forest and Wildlife Reserve. We are much taken with the acoustics of this logging museum and are threatening to record a live album there. After the final show, forest owner Peter Schleifenbaum took us into the woods for a wolf howl, trying to get a response from the several packs that inhabit the forest.
Reflecting on this summer of festivals, it’s astonishing how different they are, that each has its own, distinctive character and appeal. The commonalities, of course, are great music and happy audiences. It was a privilege to have participated.

In all the hoopla about Paul's King Leary novel, we (OK, Stuart) managed to miss this item on the CBC's website, in which Paul responds to ten questions about the novel. It's fascinating reading – and it's only been online for five months or so...

UNCUT Magazine is a popular U.K. monthly publication based in London. Our debut Way Past Midnight CD (now available in Europe on the Wildflower Records label) received this lovely review in Uncut's July issue: "Got Them Ol' Literary Salon Blues Again..."
"Blues songs about Ernest Hemingway and Booker winner Michael Ondaatje? Given that the delta pioneers were mostly illiterate, this latest contribution to the current blues revival is an improbably highbrow affair that reflects the status of main songwriter Paul Quarrington as one of Canada's leading novelists. Quarrington possesses a fine voice that sounds uncannily like James Taylor (remember his 12-bar homage "Steamroller" on Sweet Baby James?) and the band–complete with bassist moonlighting from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra–can choogle and boogie with the best."
Nigel Williamson, Uncut Magazine

Incidentally, the Mariposa Festival's 2008 commemorative CD is a beautifully packaged set, and features tracks from 19 of this year's featured performers. We were surprised and pleased to see our own Gotta Love A Train first on the track listing!

Porkbelly made its debut at Orillia's legendary MARIPOSA FOLK FESTIVAL over the weekend, playing to overflow crowds in the "Mariposa Pub", really a spacious awning on an huge expanse of lush grass. Saturday was very special, a gorgeous summer evening with pleasure boats rocking on their moorings just offshore. We had mischievously decided to tamper with the mellow, mellow mood of the festival, and luckily, the crowd was ready. Not to put too fine a point on it, we rocked the place out.
The next afternoon saw us paired with A & R for a "Blues and Reggae" workshop, and if anything, the crowd was even bigger. A & R's trio instrumentation includes box drum and steel pan, so we had absolutely no idea what to expect. Amazingly, it worked a charm, with Chas and Marty spontaneously laying down a solid foundation to the reggae tunes, and our own stuff receiving a fresh new sound from A & R.
Everything just felt so comfortable, and some of the grooves (helped by Rebecca's cowbell) simply wouldn't quit. Stuart got a roar from the crowd for attempting, in a single song, to solo on four different instruments. (He only dropped one, but he almost dropped them all.) Fronting Porkbelly, of course, was P.Q., in great voice and with his guitar amp set to maximum raunch. Wouldn't it be great if life were like this all the time?
Now we look forward to our Ottawa Blues Festival show Saturday afternoon. Thank you, Mariposa!!

London, Ontario is populated with lovely people. Some of these people seem to like Porkbelly Futures, because we keep getting asked back. London Free Press music journalist James Reaney recently published his annual summer concert guide, saying "I am thrilled to think of Toronto's Porkbelly Futures, the only band that can stand comparison with THE BAND, playing in Victoria Park. For free."
This is a reference, of course, to London's Home County Festival. We hope to see you there. And if we meet Mr. Reaney there we'll... well, we'll buy him a drink.

It seems we have some fans in PORK COLBORNE, Ontario.