2026 Mariposa Day Last
By John Swartz
Mariposa has done it again. To quote Paul Baxter, ‘you never know what you’re going to get, but it’s going to be great.” I have been saying something similar for years, but Paul whittled it down to a short, pithy line.
Case in point was the next to last main stage act, St. Paul and the Broken Bones. I knew nothing of this band. I had been camped out watching Steve Earle and decided I needed take a break to rest at my car in a lawn chair. I could hear the music well, and was not too concerned I was going to miss anything.
Well, bass and drums travel far, but the other bits of the music kind of get jumbled. I was thinking, why does the drummer not hold a groove? He’d play something interesting for a few bars and then stick a fill in that to me made no sense without the context of the rest of the music being played.
About half way through their set I decided to wander back in to take some pics. The drumming made more sense with the missing bits from the rest of the band in context. The band was about done with a tune right out of the Philly Sound of the 70s and front man, Paul Janeway, was just killing the ending, milking every note for an audience cheer. Dressed in a white suit, he dropped to his knees and proceeding to take an extended cadenza, eventually crawling onto the stage monitors, reaching out, pleading for some redemption. The crowd was eating this up. It was a moving performance.
I also noticed there was a horn section on stage, and a Hammond B3 being played, elements right up my alley. Then the band played an instrumental as Janeway left the stage. The bari sax player, Amari Ansari, proceeded to rip the place apart with an extended solo. I always measure a bari player’s skill against that of the great Doc Kupka of Tower of Power, who I believe has the best tone anyone ever produced on that instrument. Well, Amsari is the first in my lifetime to reached that level of playing I can say I witnessed.
St. Paul and the Broken Bones 
St. Paul and the Broken Bones
Then Janeway came back on stage. It occurred to me the band name, St. Paul, was no accident since Janeway’s gestures were very much like preacher postures.. He came back dressed in a back sequined robe, just like a priest. And he did the whole arms spread, oversized sleeves driving home the image. How I ever missed knowing about this band is a mystery because they do all the things I like about Soul/Funk and R&B music.
I thought their set was over and left the photo pit to stretch my legs. I had a brief conversation with Mike Brandon about the band, with my back to the stage. The band had returned for an encore. When I turned around what I saw was incredible. Janeway had made his way to the middle of the audience and was atop a ladder, belting out one more tune. The effect was biblical in a sense. I was too far away and it was too dark to get a shot, but what a way to end the set.
Right before they played, Steve Earle was on stage. He has a great sense of humour. At one point after a bunch of tunes about broken love affairs he said, “it appears this set has veered into the blues, and there’s no coming back from that.”
But he did. At one point he also said, “I see you singing along with my songs, and that doesn’t happen anywhere else but here.” He also made some personal reminiscences about Gord, concluding with, “It’s a big deal to be playing on this stage (named for Gord).”
He then played a tune which segued through the back door into Copperhead Road. I didn’t see all of his set, because I was up in the Pub tent to see Nixon Boyd lead a band made up of Steven Henry on drums, Mike Vandyk on bass, and Taylor Knox on guitar through a set of music by the Tragically Hip. What was not advertised was Scott Olgard was also part of the band playing guitar and Lance Anderson was on Hammond B3.
I saw Lance later in the evening and asked when he got added to the band. “This afternoon. And I had no rehearsal.” All the band members are from Orillia, which speaks volumes about the quality of players we have. The showed opened with James Gray introducing the band and then staying on stage to sing the first tune.
The fenced in area of the pub was full as it was for Saturday’s Neil Young retrospective, in fact Aaron Goldstein and Carleigh Aikins joined in for this one to sing a song. The difference with crowd was the age, which was overwhelmingly the opposite of the Neil Yong audience, averaging under the age of 40.
With their performance time overlapping Steve Earle’s I made a deal with myself that I’d stay until 8 p.m. or when they played Bobcaygeon, which coincidentally both happened together. Danielle Duval (who also played this year’s Roots North festival) sang the lead on this one. There were so many times the crowd cheered over-enthusiastically for some of the songs, I lost count. Congrats guys for a fantastic show.
Then when the festival was almost over, The Free Label took the main stage as the last act. Jacob Thompson and Cole Mendez are local guys, both playing keyboards. The energy stayed on high for the entire time I saw them play, which was about half their set. I would have stayed longer because, like I said Soul, Funk and R&B are right up my alley, but I uncharacteristically set myself up with some early Monday morning obligations.
This band is playing way above their station. The musicianship from all is outstanding, the show unfolds as well as any top name group playing stadiums, and they have the girls eating out of their hands. They perform like graduates of the Motown school of performance (which was an actual thing), with choreography, coordinated costumes, and stage presence you can train for some of, and the rest you have to have built in. They are big now, but they are going to be bigger.
The only complaint I have of the weekend is about all the sets I wasn’t able to see, and there were many. This won’t be resolved until teleportation becomes a thing. Still, it was a wonderful weekend.
(Photos by Swartz – SUNonline/Orillia) Main: The Free Label closed out the 2026 Mariposa Folk Festival.
