Folly Fest holds a special place in our hearts as possibly the best music festival in Atlantic Canada. Year after year we head back to Gagetown, New Brunswick like clockwork. As we’ve said before, it’s more than just a festival. It’s practically the closest thing you can get to a family reunion without being related to anyone. The sense of community there can’t be compared to anything else.
When I first showed up in 2015, just a wee babe in the woods, I had no idea what I would be getting myself into. I’d only been to a couple of music festivals in my life at that point and those seemed to exist, at least in my mind, as extravagant curiosities.
Rather than merely amassing lights and noise, Folly Fest represented so much more in the way that they engaged with the audience, or as Mike ‘Mumble’ Humble put it: it was all about curating the vibe. The difference was apparent from literally the moment I stumbled onto the festival grounds and someone offered to help put up my tent.
That was almost five years ago now. Even then I had a strong sense that this wasn’t just a large group of people gathered for the purposes of enjoying music; these were a few hundred friends I simply hadn’t met yet.
Looking back on the video and photographs from this past summer there’s barely a face I don’t recognize, and it’s hard to imagine a time when I didn’t know these people.
2018 had its ups and down, but as is always the case with Folly Fest, it only pertains to the weather. It didn’t quite rival the scene of Ben Caplan calling down a thunderstorm in 2014, but seeing Plants and Animals pressed against the back of the stage with a growing pool at their feet while a crowd still packed in around them, despite the weather, felt quintessentially Folly Fest.
Amongst all the bands that stood out, we felt that none shone brighter than Saint John’s own Jamie Comeau & the Crooked Teeth who stole the show with an early set on Folly Fest’s Main Stage.
Comeau says he landed the spot after participating in an acoustic version of Feels Good’s annual Battle of the Bands, but expected to find himself on the smaller of the festival’s two stages.
“Honestly, I have no idea how I got on the Main Stage. I thought I was playing Yippee. Absolutely incredible,” laughed Comeau. “Don’t get me wrong I would love to play the Yippee. It’s a great stage, but it was super cool to have the boys and I up on that stage. It was honestly kind of magical. We all just couldn’t stop smiling at each other. I think it even made us play better.
Everyone was so attentive, yet energy-driven. So many smiling faces, and that’s what really felt amazing. I was making hundreds of people smile by doing what I absolutely love. Crazy feeling. And can’t forget the dancing. People were feeling the groove.”
It was another moment built on a characteristic nudge from that community, and in collectively riding that wave of excitement the whole festival becomes amplified. In the company of people who can make you feel as though you can safely and unabashedly unleash the very worst of your dance moves, there comes a very liberating sense that nearly anything is possible.
Folly Fest happens June 28 – 30, 2019 this year, and we know that we’ll be back again. You might as well come along, there are some friends you haven’t met yet.