What: Vancouver Island Music Festival, featuring Ry Cooder, Walk Off the Earth, Passenger, Arlo Guthrie and more
When: Friday through Sunday, July 13 to 15
Where: Comox Valley Exhibition Grounds, 4839 Headquarters Rd., Courtenay
Tickets: $99 (Friday) and $109 (Saturday and Sunday), $199 for weekend pass; children 12 and under admitted free
Information: islandmusicfest.com
Some music festivals are all about the setting, while others are about the artists. It is a rare festival that attempts to capture both, while creating a unique community feel.
Courtenay’s Vancouver Island Music Festival is one of the few in the province to accomplish such a feat. Situated on the Comox Valley Exhibition Grounds, the three-day event takes great steps each year to ensure both the artists and audience are content, an unofficial mandate that can be felt in every corner of the site.
A crowd of 10,000 is expected this weekend, as the festival moves into its 24th year, but longtime artistic producer Doug Cox does not seem stressed. Details are being ironed out, and to-do lists are being written, but the festival family is well-versed in what needs to be done. “We’ve accomplished a lot over the years,” Cox said. “I really do feel like we have had a part in putting the Comox Valley on the map.”
Cox and Co. run what is one of the best festivals in the province. That they do so from what some in Canada would consider an out-of-the-way corner is all the more impressive. Cox likes being the underdog and winning on his own terms: On-site camping sold out within a day in May, and this year’s 52 acts include favourites Ry Cooder, Walk Off the Earth, Passenger and Arlo Guthrie.
Could he re-scale the grounds and have more people attend? Certainly. But that would ruin the appeal of what fans call Musicfest, he said. “As long as we’re around, it will always be 10,000 [capacity]. We could squeeze more in, but it would ruin the experience for people. So we’re staying at 10,000.”
Cox earns his paycheque each year by finding new ways of being successful without changing much in the way of infrastructure. Those who come to Musicfest each year like things they way they are, so he’s careful not to endanger expectations.
“Because we’re limiting our numbers to 10,000 people a day, we continue to have to figure out ways to make money on the site that isn’t just raising our prices or gouging people. It gets more and more expensive to do these things, but you don’t want to make it unaffordable for people that have supported the festivals for forever. That is going to be our struggle in the future, to continue to figure out how to make more money with the same number of people.”
Cox decided to turn the Grassy Knoll, one of the festival’s six stages, into a 800-seat family beer garden this year, and housed the stage area under a large tent (Cox admitted he was inspired to do so by a similar setup at Ontario’s Summersound Festival in Owen Sound). With spectacular sunshine forecast, he expects the new area to be well used. “There’s a lot of people, especially in the baby boomer world, who want to have a beer, but don’t want to separate themselves from their kids or separate themselves from the festival. To be able to sit and have a beer and not feel like you’re in a bar, or being segregated from all the kids, is a lovely thing.”
Arlo Guthrie is coming back to Musicfest after a 10-year break and will headline a Sunday workshop designed to make great use of his lineage. What Would Woody Do? explores the personal and professional impact his father, American icon Woody Guthrie, had on the world. Arlo will be joined by two of his children, Abe and Sarah Lee, and musicians David Amram and Josh White Jr., among others.
New, challenging artists are also well represented. Vancouver’s Red Chamber, a plucked-string ensemble performing rare ancient Chinese works, is one of the many under-the-radar acts sure to impress, Cox said. At last year’s festival, it was Lucia Micarelli, the Juilliard-trained violinist; this year, Cox expects great things from the Atlantic String Machine, a string quintet from P.E.I.
“Last year, Lucia blew everybody away. She was a highlight of the festival for a lot of people — including Emmylou Harris, who she opened for. Emmylou was stunned.
“But the Atlantic String Machine are young enough and have been around enough, so they are more adventurous than a lot of classical musicians. They are willing to be thrown on stage with anybody.”
The same goes for Noreum Machi, the most widely recognized Korean traditional music band in Korea, and Toronto’s the StepCrew, a Canadian Celtic-folk outfit fronted by Irish stepdancers, he added.
Ry Cooder, the roots music maestro, was one of the last remaining artists on Cox’s “bucket-list,” and his appearance at the festival has longtime supporters eager with anticipation for his Saturday night set.
Before the booking, Cox had almost given up on getting the last of popular music’s forbears. “I’ve been trying to get him to the festival since I started. He’s my all-time favourite, and my biggest inspiration as an artist. I feel really fortunate. So many people [in the Valley] have come up to me and said they never thought they would have the chance to see him play. I’ve seen him 10 times, but I always had to travel to see him.”
