Taking place at Hog’s Back Park, the annual Ottawa Folk Fest gets started today as five days of high-caliber musical acts get started – Lorde, Foster The People, Blue Rodeo, Blues Traveler, Serena Ryder, and more will all take to the stage.
This year’s theme for Ottawa Folk Fest, “The Great Escape,” is in honour of its milestone 20th anniversary. “It’s kind of like the last vestiges of summer,” said festival director Mark Monahan to the Ottawa Sun. “And it’s nice to have the festival to look forward to. It makes for a less dramatic depression for the fall.”
He continued, “I tried to program some leading edge acts that are either doing current work – artists like Lorde, The National, Foster the People and The Gaslight Anthem – or that have a certain cachet in having played in the past, like Neutral Milk Hotel just going out and doing some live dates after a long hiatus. So I’m trying to make it something special, that won’t be something you’d see every other month here in Ottawa. I wanted to make it something to look forward to, make it a musical event on the landscape.”
For opening day, We Are Monroe, M. Ward, Blues Traveler, TIMEKODE, and Foster The People are on the bill.
The Ottawa Folk Fest runs from today until September 14th.
Photo: Lorde
