One of these days, I swear I will watch an entire Arts County Fair day. As it stands, the event generally happens on a Thursday, the last day of classes for the University year at UBC, and is organized by the student union. This means there's generally a lot of mayhem along with a lot of goodness. After finally getting media passes sorted out and getting the grand tour from one of the coordinators, I was left to my own devices to wander about and see what was going on. Among the first sights seen walking into the backstage area was a guy who had I guess come out of the moshpit crowdsurfing, or maybe he was getting rowdy in the Molson VIP area, being dragged to the ground by no less than three cops and basically sat on until help could arrive to take him away. The guy (unclear at this point whether he was a suspect or a victim!!) was struggling and asking over and over "why are you doing this to me?" And such was the epitome of ACF - oh my was there a lot of drunk.









That isn't the point however. Okay maybe it is - 13,000 people celebrating springtime and the end of classes certainly need a lot of alcohol involved. What's a celebration without it? Despite the fact that no one seemed to know where the beer they were drinking had materialized from, I soon found myself the recipient of graciously donated beers from one of the bands playing the festival. The weather couldn't make up its mind to be sunny or rainy, but as a result, we were treated to some magnificent and dramatic skies and a few faint rainbows. Aaron Pritchett was on stage when I got back there, playing a set of pop country music replete with cowboy hats and foot stomps. The audience, which I'd almost expect to be utterly dissaffected in response to this genre of music, was absolutely having a ball. Ordinarily, I might be inclined to think it's just because everyone was loaded and couldn't care less what was on stage at all, but a quick glance at the row of faces along the front of the crowd proved that everyone knew the words and were enthusiastically singing along with Pritchett's music. How unexpected.











Well no one can say Arts County isn't diverse. Between sets, the audience was entertained by a very 80's-ified, neon-track-suit outfitted My! Gay! Husband!, one of Vancouver's perenially reknowned and ubiquitous DJs. Many finely adjusted 80's tunes were spun and the crowd was sufficiently amped up by cheers and shouts about what was to follow. Some semblance of De La Soul was in there as well, doing much the same thing, but I think this befuddled the crowd that so eagerly embraced the country before it. Maybe De La Soul is too vintage for the uni-youngsters. In the artists' backstage area, musicians from the rest of the day perched on folding chairs to peer over the fence and watch the stage. They also had sandwiches. Now despite us media kids having free reign of all areas from what the coordinator told us, suddenly various restrictions were heaped into place. I was collared by a security guard for trying to enter the media pit (was that yankback really necessary?? A tap on the shoulder would have worked just fine) after being told that we were allowed to photograph whenever and wherever through the day. Nope, actually, we could shoot sidestage only after three songs. My guest for the event left the sidestage area through a gate that we had freely walked in and out of numerous times in the day, just to make it to a washroom, which for some reason was not provided sidestage, only to suddenly be barred from re-entry without a festival escort. What?? At this time there was a backstage tragedy as well - a girl who was slumped over in a chair, presumably one who had fallen from the VIP booth scaffolding. I thought she was just perhaps loaded beyond belief, but who knows.











Anyways, headliners the Sam Roberts Band were on next. The buttery waning sun and bitter cold that had them all stomping their feet and donning mittens moments earlier now seemed a delightful environment for them. Heat coiled off of them, the sun adding warmth to the stage lights. The audience at the front seemed to have tripled in anticipation of this set, and was in serious danger of pushing down the fence between them and the sidestage area. ACF staffers were clustered along this precarious fenceline attempting to hold it in place.











And oh so many photographers. The media pit was impassable for security guards and us. And raging kids flying over on the hands of the crowd. People love that Sam Roberts. Heck, even one photographer gal took her 'all access' seriously and actually wandered around on the stage taking shots of them for a couple of minutes until a crew member decided she probably shouldn't be there. And so many shoes! I can't imagine being in a mosh pit with no shoes. Maybe people bring extra shoes with them to the show to throw. People side stage were nabbing the pairs of shoes that ended up discarded there. Some were pitched back into the audience. Roberts I believe even got pegged by a water bottle or something.











Not one to be outdone, guitarist Dave Nugent cavorted about the stage in a wild haze and at one point took a vicious swig of beer before popping the bottle back out of his mouth, sweeping an arc of beer far into the crowd, and whipping the bottle towards the stage edge. Mmmm rocker beer! The band was engaging as they always are though. This show comes on the heels of a bit of a family- and- new-music related break for the band, so they were quite full of energy, despite the chill and the long all-day wait before they hit the stage. Roberts stomps around the stage, whether with or without a guitar, raspy voice sending coils of steam into the air, urging the audience to clap and sing along. They obliged willingly, and um, is that a bra that was flung towards the stage? Clearly they have reached the pinnacle of rockstardom when lingerie is being tossed their way. The songs they charged through were an even blend of debut-album songs and tunes from the latest release, "Chemical City." They finished up an encore with a brand new song. All were amped up to stadium sound and everyone seemed pretty happy. So into it was their drummer, Josh Trager, that he didn't realize he had maimed his hand somehow during the set until I pointed it out to him probably 15 minutes after they'd left the stage and were safely back on their RV with some refreshing beverages. There were interesting mixed emotions about the show. Mostly the negatives were a result of weather and fear-for-safety, but Roberts himself summed everything up nicely by saying it was great fun just because of the unpredictable nature of the crowd, so much energy, and that it had been a long time since they'd played a show in front of such unbridled enthusiasm.











Leaving them to their own devices, I followed the throng of folks out of the venue and slowly down the dark university roads back to the bus loop that would take me downtown to the Red Room. To my suprise, on stage when I arrived was Jets Overhead. I hadn't known they would be playing this show - so even though I only got to check out two songs of theirs, it was a great little recollection of their sound, which is increasing in fullness and intensity the further they continue. Singer Adam Kittredge was on fire tonight, twisting and turning and roiling about behind the microphone, stomping and sweating with exertion. Poppy as always, they managed to gain the ultra attention of exactly two exuberant audience members, who broke through the timid supporting-act hanger-backers to dance about wildly on the open floor directly in front of the band. They urged others to join in to no avail, but after they completed their set, a courteous round of clapping and cheering went up, and suddenly everyone crushed stageward to get up close and personal with Ireland's The Frames.











Some of you may recall a lovely chat we had with The Frames a couple of years ago. They are the same personable fellows as always, Though singer Glen Hansard is a bit hairier than we've seen him in the past. starting slowly, they wound through heaps of songs and engaged the crowd with adorable anecdotes throughout. Clearly their live "Set List" album has influenced many, as requests for songs on that album (of course, contained elsewhere too... but read on...) were flung forth every time they broke. They were urged to repeat the blurbs they spoke on "Set List" when introducing songs, prompting Hansard to discount at least one of those (for the song "So What Happens When The Heart Just Stops?") as something that "just felt right" at the time to say. It actually has nothing to do with the song, despite being a true story. It's a tale about a white dog he knew as a child. Cute tale.











While often a gentle band, they can really get intense when the moment calls for it. The lone violin on stage somehow sounds like a million of them, and at times, does become more than one, as we were treated to a violin solo in the encore that looped over itself a couple of times to create a small orchestra. Hansard wheels himself around the stage, whining guitar solos... loud yells, fevered yells, oh it's a lovely thing. All warm and caring, deep and pleasant. There's nothing here that seems fake.





And so ended a pleasant and well-rounded evening. Almost. It was capped with some midnight soup, and then was placed in the past with all the others.

More SRB...

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : April, 2007.