Mariposa Wrap Up
By John Swartz
The 65th Mariposa Folk Festival was pretty much like all the other Mariposa Folk Festivals we’ve had here in Orillia, well except for maybe that third one; we all had a lot of fun, discovered some new music, saw our once-a-year friends – and had the best time.
There were still tickets available on Friday, still some available Saturday. Sunday morning they were saying there were less than 20 tickets left and three hours later there were none. Four years in a row it has been sold out.
When the lineup came out months ago there were quite a few names I didn’t recognize. It happens every year, but this year there were more names in the large, bold font section of the poster I didn’t recognize than there were in previous years. And that’s the beauty of this festival they still find great bands and musicians to perform at the festival.
I’d never heard of Les Hay Babies, Elisapie, Waxahatchee, The Melbourne Ska Orchestra, Bros, or Goldie before, but they all made great music. I’m glad I got a chance to hear them play and will go see them again.
There’s a couple dozen others I never got to see and a bunch of workshops I couldn’t fit in. It happens every year, someone says ‘did you see so-and-so?’ and of course I didn’t, ‘oh, you missed a good one.’ Of course that works two ways and a lot of people didn’t see some of the performances I did, especially the pub performances.
While My Son The Hurricane was playing in the pub, Serena Ryder was on the main stage. I didn’t get to see a significant part of Serena’s set and missed the part when she had Julian Taylor and Martha Wainwright join her on stage. I did catch the last number when she had Irish Mythen, Tom Wilson, Nate Mills, Tara Lightfoot, Martha and Julian, and a few others join her on stage to close out her performance.
Serena opened with If You Could Read My Mind, which the audience loved. A couple tunes later while singing Heavy Love a couple girls in the standup section in front of stage started singing along and before you know it almost everyone was singing along. Serena even left some spaces for the audience to carry the tune. One thing was clear to me, Serena is quite popular with teenage girls. There were other tunes when the audience almost took over the show.
And here’s another observation; without statistical proof, I have noticed since the pandemic and particularly last year and this year there are a lot of young people, and certainly high school age, people going to Mariposa, more than prior to the pandemic. Festival organizers have to be pleased about that as a sign the event will have longevity here in Orillia.
As I mentioned My Son The Hurricane was playing in the pub tent. With 13 members (7 of them in the brass section) they put on an energetic, in-your-face performance. Just the kind of thing that works so well in the pub late at night. They have a lot of choreography to go with their brand music and I’m sure rehearsals must have been fun until they all got it right.
I had a conversation with Lance Anderson about this band. Of course I like them, Lance not so much. I listened closely for the things he pointed out and he’s right there are some intonation and execution problems they could tighten up. There’s so much sound and movement on stage those things are not apparent to most people. I get if you’re only going by what you hear, especially if one is an accomplished musician who only plays with other accomplished musicians of equal calibre, it’s possible to not be so enthusiastic about them. On a strict analysis of their music performance I don’t know that I would score them very high either.
But when you include what your eyes or seeing and the way their songs are arranged I think the general affect of what they do on stage makes up the difference. One only has to look at the audience to understand you can’t sit still while their performing. They certainly are very loose on stage.
And contrasting with the Melbourne Ska Orchestra, who had 18 on The Lightfoot Stage (12 in the brass section), the musical performance was only marginally better. They did use some choreographed body movement, horn flashes, but did not run around the stage like My Son The Hurricane. And yet they were exciting to watch.
I also can’t get out of this without mentioning Ron Sexsmith and Blackie and the Rodeo Kings who preceded Serena Ryder on the main stage in that order. You have to admire the way Sexsmith writes lyrics and melodies to suit his almost pure tenor voice. There’s nothing flashy about his music, it’s just delivered in an authentic way people seem to like.
I decided I was going to stay put for all of Blackie and company’s set. They play the festival a lot, and should play it a lot more, but I’ve only caught the beginnings, the middles, or the endings. Again, conflicting performances in the pub are to blame. They do such a great show it’s a shame I was only able to justify being there for the whole thing this time around. The band was great and Colin Linden’s slide guitar playing was impeccable.
Some Other Observations
About that rainstorm, I’m not aware the city did any great work on drainage in the park, but I recall a couple of times with heavy rainfall (but not as much as happened Saturday night) where large parts of the festival area of Tudhope Park became soggy and spongy to walk on and the parking area nearest the stage turned into a mud pit. This was not the case this year.
At the beginning of the weekend Mariposa Folk Foundation president and chair of the festival organizing committee, Pam Carter, said there were 750 volunteers this year. These are the people that make this festival work and be so enjoyable. So many of them put in time ahead of the festival setting up, and for days afterward cleaning up. They make sure acts get to Orillia and then once they’re in the park, to and from their performances on the various stages. Then there’s the people who change up the sets and those who make sure everything sounds good.
The sound on the main stage this year was excellent. Somewhere along the line on Friday or Saturday night I had the thought – finally the music coming from the bass guitars was not the focal point, the end all and be all of the music on the stage. I love lots of bass, and drums, but if it bothers me, there’s a problem. Furthermore I could hear all the instruments on stage. It was so great to hear Ewan Currie’s guitar properly situated in the mix and Ricky Paquette’s blistering guitar solos dominating the mix just like in the old days when it meant something for guitar solos to actually be heard. It’s likely the Sheepdogs have their own soundboard operator and didn’t use the house’s, but the house operator wasn’t letting anybody down through the weekend either.
There seem to be more community groups involved with the community village this year. It also is important to understand this festival would not happen without the support of sponsors, many of whom are local businesses.
When I was introducing Run with the Kittens and Boo Radley Project Saturday morning to a full Pub Stage audience I asked for hands up from those who were out of town. Easily half the audience put their hands up. I suspect this would be true for the main stage audiences as well. The city has a good thing going with Mariposa, let’s hope it stays that way. I
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia) Main: The Melbourne Ska Orchestra at the 2025 Mariposa Folk Festival
