WELCOME TO BANGOR

If you find yourself along Bangor’s waterfront Saturday at approximately 4 p.m. you will hear, depending on which way your ears are attuned, Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas, a fiddle traditions demonstration, French traditions or Brian Marshall & His Tex-Slavic Playboys or maybe a bit of all of them. Turn toward Washington Street and the three-part blues, gospel, soul and R&B harmony of The Holmes Brothers will drift by and the confluence of folk music will be complete.

The match of a city with a rough-cut past and unvarnished music from down-home America is perfect. Bangor and the National Folk Festival come together officially today, and both seem ready. The campaigning and planning to bring the festival here and make it work took years. But the final preparations are most apparent – the city has added grass to dirt, new paint to rusty lamp posts and smooth pavement to rubble. It has washed, raked and mown, added signs and maps, fretted about the heat and, alternately, rain. It has, in short, prepared itself for center stage on a national scale and it has done a terrific job.

The National Folk Festival is an annual celebration of music but also of dance and storytelling, crafts and food. And it has something in particular for Bangor. Just as the city’s teenage baseball players learned something about their skills during the recent Senior League World Series, Bangor will compare itself with other cities that have been hosts to the festival and gain an appreciation of its abilities. It certainly looks prepared now for a great time, and it no doubt will get better during its three-year run.

Admission to the festival is free, and if you like any popular type of music at all, you will find it or its close cousin between the opening parade at 6:30 p.m. tonight led by Treme Brass Band and the final number by the Cape Breton Square Sets at the Kenduskeag Dance Pavilion 6 p.m. Sunday. It is an event for the many out-of-state visitors to enjoy but equally for local residents who want to experience the mix of American culture and see what their city can do on a national stage.