The last in a troika of festivals

Two short summers ago, the enthusiasm of the crowd for the rockabilly performance of guitarist Bill Kirchen at the 64th National Folk Festival on Bangor’s reborn waterfront was so overwhelming that the talented musician gushed, “Hot damn. I feel like one of the GIs who liberated Paris.”

Coming on the 58th anniversary of the Aug. 25, 1944 liberation of Paris by Allied forces in World War II, it was an apt figure of speech: Kirchen and dozens of other top-rung national and international performers and craftsmen as liberators, arriving in the nick of time to revive a populace too long in need of the elixir of good old down-home toe-tapping, boot-scootin’ musical entertainment. An estimated 80,000 appreciative Mainers and their guests from away as cheering Parisians, infused with the joie de vivre that comes with a sea change for the better in the life of a community.

That first of three National Folk Festivals to be hosted by Bangor exceeded the expectations of most organizers and captivated the masses, ensuring that the second year’s attendance would increase. People whose skill ostensibly lies in accurately guessing the sizes of crowds (reminding me of the old boy who claimed to be able to tell me the number of cows in a herd by counting their legs and dividing by four) pegged the attendance figure for the three-day event last August at 100,000. But who can say for sure?

All I know is that had the lines leading to the portable toilets been laid end to end they’d easily have reached beyond Veazie. And if you hadn’t thought to bring a peanut butter sandwich and a couple of Fig Newtons from home to forestall starvation, well, rotsa ruck in bucking the mob in search of sustenance.

And now we have come to our final fling in this particular troika of festivals before the lashup moves on to Richmond, Va., for its next three-year gig. Last night the Reeltime Travelers, a spirited old-time string band specializing in mountain music, got the joint jumping when they opened the 66th National Folk Festival on a stage not far from the spot where Portuguese explorer Estevan Gomez is said to have poked around nearly 500 years ago on an excursion that had undoubtedly seemed like a good idea at the time.

Today’s 10 hours of nonstop action begins at high noon with simultaneous performances at half a dozen venues strategically located along the waterfront. Bluegrass. Gospel. Cajun. Country. New Orleans jazz. Music of the Cape Breton highlands. Zydeco. Irish music. Puppetry and other diversions for the kids. Music from Arabia and Africa and the Balkans and Mexico and Vietnam played on every instrument you can imagine and some you can’t. Show me the person who can’t find something to his liking and I’ll show you a party-pooping grouch.

Organizers advise the clientele to bring lawn chairs or blankets, water bottles, sunscreen and umbrellas for shade. But unless your pal, Fido, is a working guide dog, leave the mutt at home because the festival site, thank God, is a dogdoo-free zone.

Predictions are that the turnout this weekend will top last year’s attendance, provided that festival planners have remembered to properly appease the weather gods. It’s difficult to see how the gods could possibly be upset, though, with Bangor’s continuing heroic transformation of its once-seedy waterfront area into a showcase site for the festivities.

For starters, as festival-goers will discover, there are the attractive ultra-wide brick sidewalks featuring granite etchings depicting scenes from Bangor’s history. And inviting park benches, street lights, prolific and well-tended flora and a budding expansive green belt along the storied Penobscot River. An amphitheater is planned, as are other amenities. On the other side of the river, Brewer is sprucing up, as well. The riverfront revitalization serves to validate Thoreau’s description of Bangor-Brewer as a locale “like a star on the edge of night.”

Next year, its umbilical cord to the National Folk Festival organization severed, Bangor will keep the August tradition alive when it sponsors the American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront, a mouthful that sounds suspiciously like the National Folk Festival By Any Other Name.

No matter. Festival boosters could do worse than emulate the NFF. Keeping the same format and bringing in the same caliber of performer from this country and beyond may be no guarantee of continuing success, but if it ain’t broke why fix it? If you build it, they will come. If you build it and admission is free, they’ll trample one another to be first in line.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.