Suprisingly metro, refreshingly folk Thanks to ‘perfect weekend,’ Bangor realizes ‘American’ dream

It’s the same old song and dance – and that’s a good thing. The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront made its debut over the weekend, a follow-up to the National Folk Festival’s landmark three-year stay here. It was clear that the city has been there, done that, loved it and can’t wait for more. It went off (mostly) without a hitch, glitch, incident or accident, save for a few blisters on dancers’ boogie-starved soles.

“Really, it’s a perfect weekend,” said Julia Olin, associate director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Council for the Traditional Arts, which has partnered with local organizers to produce the festival.

Hurricane Katrina left the Bahamas Junkanoo Revue stranded in Florida and delayed a few departures from Bangor on Sunday, but in the Queen City itself, the weather held up until Sunday’s finale. The sun beat down on festival-goers Saturday afternoon and a breeze off the Penobscot River blew down a few smaller tents. Emergency medical personnel from Eastern Maine Medical Center and Capital Ambulance Service said they had handed out sunscreen and bandages, but had not handled any cases of heat stroke as they did last year when the temperatures soared over 90 degrees.

Police work at the event has become so routine that Bangor Deputy Police Chief Peter Arno called it “festival in a box” as he handed out police badge stickers to children on Saturday afternoon. The toughest duty was directing traffic as officers on foot and on bikes provided a presence amid what Arno called “a really well-behaved crowd.”

“The weather has been perfect,” Olin said. “It’s not too hot, not too cold, the crowds have been lovely and laid-back.”

And huge. Though official crowd counts weren’t available at press time, Heather McCarthy, the festival’s executive director, estimated that they’re on par with last year’s total of 135,000 over the course of three days. Some festival-goers said it didn’t feel as crowded as in years past, and with good reason.

“We’re four years into it, of course, but even so I’ve heard a lot of [positive] comments about the setup,” city engineer Jim Ring said Sunday, pausing to eat a Polish sausage sandwich before zipping off on a golf cart. “We’ve made some adjustments to the site and the site setup.”

The site looks completely different now than it did four years ago when the National first came to Bangor. Olin remembers standing in the offices of Berry Dunn McNeil and Parker and looking out over the snow-covered waterfront.

“It looked a lot better covered up than it did after the snow melted,” she said, laughing. “Now, it’s really beautiful.”

Brick sidewalks, new lighting, a riverside walk and green grass have turned a dusty, graveled riverfront railroad yard into a spacious, comfortable park.

The National may have been the catalyst for the long-awaited revival of the waterfront, but it had other, less tangible effects as well.

“We realized what we could do – we built it and people came,” said Stephanie Welcomer, 47, of Orono. “You can start something. This feels very vibrant and it feels very progressive, like part of the world and the whole world in our little area.”

Welcomer and her 7-year-old daughter Emma Haggerty were sitting in the shade of a small tree near the food court, eating a Korean tofu and vegetable stir-fry while flamenco music played in the background. The festival has become an annual tradition for Welcomer and her husband, who see it as an opportunity to talk with their children about their own cultural heritage – she has German ancestry and he’s half-Irish.

“I like it that the girls can think of their home place as a place where people from all over the world come,” Welcomer said.

People in the region have come to expect a multicultural experience, just as they have come to feel a sense of pride in the festival. A smooth, well-run event is something festival-goers now take for granted.

“The first year really surprised Mainers because so many people came out, and that doesn’t really happen in Maine,” recalled Michael Doucet of the Cajun group BeauSoleil, who returned to kick off The American Folk Festival. “I think that just gives it credence. … When that opens up, when they’re exposed to it, their horizons open up, too, and when that happens it makes people focus on who they are, not who they aren’t.”

So who are these people in the audience? They’re the owners of The American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront. Organizers say the new event could become as successful as the Lowell Festival in Massachusetts, a spinoff of the National that has become an institution in the city. In the same fashion as the American, the NCTA produces that festival, as well.

“I think there’s a lot of future potential for a festival here,” Olin said. “Surely this ranks among the most successful follow-up festivals the NCTA has been involved in. We do hold Bangor’s success as a model of what a community can accomplish.”

The community response has been overwhelming. In addition to the large audiences, this year more than 800 volunteers worked to make the event as seamless as possible.

“Everyone has to support it because it’s the lifeline,” Doucet said. “This becomes your own image here. That’s great because there’s the sense of a national aspect. People are going to recognize this place, Bangor, as a destination for a national festival.”

Though attracting audiences and performers of the highest caliber contributes to the festival’s continued success, the linchpin, of course, is funding. The number of corporate sponsors and major donors has increased. By Sunday, Bucket Brigade donations were well over $40,000, and despite some complaints over the new $5 parking charge at Bass Park, it didn’t seem to deter anyone.

“They’ve seen this festival, they believe in it,” McCarthy said. “It’s not a one-shot deal. It’s a new tradition, and the first year of a new tradition. It’s just the beginning.”

For Teresa and Ernie Steele of Brewer, it’s the continuation of what has become a summer ritual. For the last four years, their family has gathered on the waterfront for the National, now the American.

On Saturday night, as Bettye LaVette belted out the blues, Teresa sang the praises of the festival – the music, the diverse lineup, the people-watching, the way things moved so smoothly – and, perhaps more importantly, what it has done for the community.

“It seems like a big family,” she said. “It livens up the area, it gives us some character that we never really had before.”

BDN reporter Judy Harrison contributed to this story.