Fusion Festival 2014

On paper this festival seemed like a good idea, a festival celebrating many different cultures in a small space. It’s like travelling around the world without the high cost and air plane anxiety. The festival was situated just a block away from King George skytrain station at Holland Park.
It takes a lot for me to travel out to Surrey with legitimate reason. There is enough cultural events around the city to wet my appetite that going to Surrey isn’t a luxury for the social.
What prompted me to go all the way to Surrey was the last minute news of Bruce Cockburn performing, an artist who has been on my bucket list for some time. The Free price tag was appealing enough for me.
As for the festival itself the booths were almost bare with little to no cultural substance of the countries they were trying to represent. Most of the booths attempted to feature a cultural food but resulted very poorly. They did have a «taste of Canada» booth. It’s good to see the visible minority in both Surrey and Vancouver being represented. Supposedly we Canadians only eat poutine with bad gravy and elephant ears.
Greece’s booth was empty. Even they couldn’t afford anyone to work there.
They made you buy food tickets which was odd? Were they worried about theft? Were they ensuring that a proper cut was taken from the vendors? My best friend and I bought $ 5 worth of tickets, however, that barely covered anything of actual culinary substance. Some booths didn’t even have any prices listed at all. They had a «we will charge you whatever we feel like it» attitude. Are you telling me that at 8:30 pm after working the festival for 8 hours you don’t know what you’re selling your food for? At one booth we had a small bowl of lamb soup. Everyone working in the booth had to discuss with each other what to charge us. They took all 5 of our tickets = $ 5. It was good soup, however, I am sure that we were just carnied.
Oddly this Bruce Cockburn show wasn’t advertised anywhere. Not even my friends who live in Surrey knew of the festival in the first place. Lately the City of Surrey has been spending money like drunken sailors to prove that they’re the new «it» city, however, they didn’t make an effort to extend the invitation to Vancouver or other surrounding lower mainland cities to prove themselves as being the next big thing. Was this a comfort blanket event for the Surrey locals to convince them that they don’t live in one of the worst places?
If it wasn’t for my best friend who was tipped off about the show I would’ve been really pissed about reading about the Bruce Cockburn concert the following day.
All punchlines aside (no pun intended), the saving grace of the evening was a stellar 90 minute performance by Bruce Cockburn. I was immediately reminded of how awesome he is as a guitarist and songwriter, one of the most underrated in the country.
The way Bruce plays his guitar he creates a sense of melody that goes beyond carrying the weight of the song. It actually has dimension and emotion. It almost comes across as though the music could come secondary, however, the marriage of the two: great lyrics and stellar playing make for beautiful pieces.
His voice is still very much in tact. I got immediately lost in the lyrics that still hold relevancy. The lyrics are very political but vague enough that they’re still fitting years later for whatever the current political situation is.
Unlike most artists who cake walk their big singles, Bruce actually sang them with genuine feeling (s) and was very into the moment.
The sound mix was incredible for an outdoor venue. It was just him and a guitar. All the elements of the performance hit a core spot in my music heart. I was locked and hypnotized during those 90 minutes.
If I Had A Rocket Launcher still had the same emotional impact of sending chills through my body as well as a tear in my eye. He’s the only artist that I know who can swear and still sound classy.
For the most part the audience, for that type of show, were extremely well behaved. I only saw one guy on his iphone during the performance. I guess he preferred playing his «rocket launcher» game rather than hearing a Canadian icon perform.