Last night, Ottawa kicked off its 22nd annual CityFolk Festival at Lansdowne Park. With performers like The Dropkick Murphys, The Acorn, and James Bay, the night looked just as promising as the golden sunset.
As I entered the venue I was excited to see the layout of the festival, but apart from the main “City Stage,” the rest of the festival’s set-up left something to be desired. Both the BMO and RavenLaw stages are placed inside buildings, which highly limits the amount of fans that have the opportunity to attend the sets or see certain bands.
Sadly, there were a number of Lost Cousins fans who had no choice but to sit outside the venue space and listen to a diluted version of the band play. Not only did fans get stuck outside of the concert, but also vendors within that building got completely drowned out by the blaring music echoing within the venue.
In contrast to the hit and miss of the indoor stages, the City Stage was placed perfectly in the middle of Lansdowne’s Great Lawn. This gave almost all the people attending those acts a great view no matter where they were either sitting or standing even as the crowd grew throughout the evening leading up to the night’s headliner James Bay.
The acts themselves were overall a fun and enjoyable way to kick off the festival. The festival’s inaugural band Boston’s The Dropkick Murphys kicked the night off loud and proud to a dynamic crowd of fans who were more than ready to rock front and centre at the City Stage.
Later on, the smoother indie-rock sounds from Lost Cousins bled from the more than packed BMO stage, and although I couldn’t manage to get close enough, the sound oozing from the off-stage area made it seem like the good times The Dropkick Murphys had started earlier on in the night were continuing.
From there, strings of bands played across all three stages. Future States played to a small but seemingly devoted crowd on the RavenLaw stage, the second of the indoor venues at the festival. The Acorn’s mellow sound made people sway at the City Stage as well, and drew laughs from the crowd thanks to front man Rolf Klausener.
To round out the night, James Bay performed. This widely loved British babe seemed to have stolen the hearts of many of those standing in the crowd, mine included. He was certainly a great note to end the outdoor shows for day one.
All in all, I was pretty impressed with all the acts I had the chance to see, but I think the idea of having indoor stages needs to be reviewed considering the struggle it appeared to have caused. Day one gets a 7/10 from me, can’t wait to see what the next three have in store.
