One of the best things about the Roots and Blues Festival is that people check their attitudes at the gate.
We’ve all been to those parties where the guests seem pretentious or snobby, where you can feel yourself just waiting to make a faux-pas or realizing that you’ve made the wrong wardrobe choice and don’t really fit in.
But never at Roots and Blues – it’s the party without attitude, a place where acceptance and enthusiasm set the tone.
(And trust me, there’s no dress code here… anything goes. Well, except for the woman who was found drunk near the festival grounds and without any clothing on the lower half of her anatomy. But if you are not nude, you’re in.)
There’s the old saying that you can’t be all things to all people, but the Roots and Blues Festival comes about as close as it can get. Set against the stunning backdrop of Mt. Ida, the festival embraces all, from infant to senior and somehow manages to deliver positive experiences all around.
A couple of hand-written message posted on the festival’s contact board summed it up:
“I found the sun and lost the stress.” and “Out here, I am nobody and everybody. I have never felt so free.”
Musician Jacky Essombe, who spoke about the culture of her native Cameroon, talked about how music and dance is an essential element in bringing people together.
“If you share songs, you dance together, you share an experience and that connects people. You become a family.”
It is so true. We usually set up “camp” and suddenly the people around you become friends. You swap stories about your favourites, you take a look at what they are eating before making your own decisions, you watch out for their stuff.
The vibe is celebratory as people dance, sing, sway and clap to the ever-changing beats. There’s simply no stereotypical Roots and Blues-goer. There’s no category it neatly fits into, except that it becomes, in essence, defined by its very diversity.
The range of music certainly bears that out, as local Shuswap performers mingle with Jamaican Ky-Mani Marley, Felix Zenger from Finland and Selah Sue from Belgium. This range also stretches across this nation with Skratch Bastid from Nova Scotia, City and Colour from Ontario, the Crooked Brothers from Manitoba and Oh! Ogopogo!, whose name references our own Interior B.C. connection. The guests too, come from far and wide. I met Australians, Germans and Americans this weekend, and many timed their Shuswap vacations to coincide with the festival.
This spirit of the festival infects the performers as well, The Bright Lights Social Hour commented on how this event is something unique, a vibe they haven’t experienced in their home base of Texas and in their other gigs.
It’s an important reminder of just what a special, precious thing has been created here over the past 21 years the festival has been showcasing music in Salmon Arm.
