No forgetting this Folk Fest ‘It’s the people who make the party’ as intensity, serenity mix on the waterfront

BANGOR – The first thing I noticed as I enjoyed the sights and sounds of the American Folk Festival Aug. 22-24 on the Bangor Waterfront was the two cruise boats tied up at the dock.

Creating a shining white backdrop along the waterfront, they were proof positive, along with the throngs of people crowding the grounds, that the American Folk Festival has become a favorite destination.

Walking downriver toward the dance pavilion along what I can’t resist calling the “Penobscot River Promenade,” I was impressed with its pleasant aspect. The designer made the new layout inviting, taking full advantage of the green space along the river’s edge where tables and chairs were set up for the convenience of festival-goers. The layout made the beauty of the deep blue river supremely evident, and the long white row of craft vendors’ tents facing the river easily accessible.

At a glance, it was evident that Heather McCarthy, American Folk Festival director, and a corps of 900 volunteers made the festival run like clockwork.

All three days of the festival, I noticed things that happened in the blink of an eye – unexpected things, creating for me the indelible, interesting, amusing and wonderful human flavor of the festival.

I spoke to the busy people at one of the food concessions who said that by festival’s end, they would sell more than 300 pounds of crabmeat. A worker at a concession just for french fries said they would chop up and deep fry more than 5,200 pounds of potatoes.

The spirit of good humor and merriment was embodied Friday evening by St. George Greek Orthodox Church when those folks, clad in blue aprons, kicked up their heels in an impromptu dance, a la Zorba the Greek.

I saw a tall, slender 20-something man wearing a long plaid skirt and striding along like the disciple of some pacific and esoteric philosophy whose basic tenets had imbued him with serenity and self-possession.

There were couples, from teenagers to 80-somethings, holding hands as they strolled along enjoying the music, the food and the glorious weather.

I witnessed joyful greetings as friends who had not seen one another for a long time crossed paths at the festival, in spite of the odds against it, when you consider the thousands of people clogging the waterfront.

I saw many dogs even though festival organizers had issued news releases asking that owners leave their pets at home. But these canines were leashed and well-behaved. One golden retriever wore an “I kicked in” sticker on its head as he listened to Bonga and the Vodou Drums of Haiti. Talk about the secret lives of dogs!

Friday night at the performance of Jeffrey Broussard and the Creole Cowboys, a man clad in a beautiful red plaid kilt led his lady out onto the dance floor. The pleats in his kilt rippled to the groove of the zydeco beat. Also on the dance floor was a slender, 60-something man dressed in black doing graceful tai chi moves to the zydeco rhythms. Right then, the truly international and intercultural weight and beauty of the festival made its full impression on me.

I saw a little girl with blond ringlets fast asleep in her grampy’s arms as he danced to Broussard’s music. Many other little girls were danced around happily in their grampa’s arms. Clearly, family values were alive and well at the festival.

When not at the festival site, I listened to folk festival performances on WERU radio. A member of the National Folk Festival Council, whose name was lost to static, said as he introduced an act that the American Folk Festival was considered the most successful of all the festivals spun off from the National – quite a feather in Bangor’s and Maine’s caps.

My favorite performance at the festival was Hector del Curto’s Eternal Tango Quartet. The complexity and passion of the music, the intensity of the musicians, and the precise steps and sensual movement of the tango dancers had the audience begging for more – they got it with an encore from both musicians and dancers.

Del Curto told the audience at the end of his performance, “This is one of the best, if not the best, festival I have ever attended.” He also has a full orchestra that plays tango music and hopes it – or his quartet – will be invited to perform at the 2009 festival.

But it was Jeffrey Broussard of the Creole Cowboys, quoting Zydeco Joe, one of his music heroes, whose comment defined what makes the American Folk Festival so successful: “It’s the people who make the party.”

And what a swell party it was.