I have just come back from Summerfolk, and I am now feeling very lonely. I am suffering from withdrawal. Its the atmosphere I miss. Everything was so friendly and informal, and best of all it was easy to meet the performers. So I have put on Bargainville and I am going to recount everything that happened at the festival to make myself feel better.

The festival started Friday (August 15) night. The gates opened at 5:00, but my friends and I were waiting in line by 4:00. When the gates opened everyone sprinted to the amphitheatre to get a good seat (we got one right near the front). We got a program, and established that Moxy Frvous was playing the next night, and at many workshops, we were getting very excited. At about 7:00 I looked over at this area beside the stage and noticed that Jian was standing there talking to a technician. Shortly after Mike came in, and then Murray. Of course we were completely distracted from the stage (it was a boring act anyway). Murray was looking out to the crowd and it seemed to us that he recognized us. Then he smiled, and we were sure it was at us.

About an hour later I noticed that my rain pants had ripped so I went to the Food village to see if I could get some tape from someone. I was walking by the Food Ticket booth when I noticed that Dave and Mike (and his girlfriend) were in line. I stood mouth agape staring at them for a little while. I had loved them for so long, and that I was this close I couldnt bring myself to talk to them. A few minutes later I observed that Dave was eating White Fish on a Bun.

A couple hours later we were walking around the Food Village again. This time we noted that Murray was eating White Fish on a Bun.

The next morning we had the same mad rush for a good seat, then we made our way over to the Harmonies workshop with Moxy Frvous as hosts, Modabo and Arrandale. Moxy Frvous began the workshop with Spiderman. Mike (as Spiderman) sang: the way to get power is to take a hostage. and proceeded to take one. A few seconds later he rushed the crying child back to her parents. For the rest of the workshop everyone, including Mike, kept making jokes about it. The workshop finished with all the groups, and the audience singing Will the Circle Be Unbroken together.

When we were going to get lunch we noticed Mike and his girlfriend eating White Fish on a Bun.

At 3:30 we went to a workshop called Profound Ditties which was only Moxy Frvous. We didnt come early enough so we had to sit behind the stage. They started with My Baby Loves a Bunch of Authors and Mike forgot his lines in the third verse. The came to his part and he just went: Yeah!!. They all started laughing, and tried to pick up where they had left off, but he still didnt remember his line. They had to start the verse over again, this time he got it. In the next Chorus Murray changed a line to: Mikes crucifixion!. After the workshop I asked Mike if they could play Fell in Love that night at their concert, but he said that they hadnt practiced it in three years and they wouldnt have time to get it ready, but that they were working on it for the fall.

At 7:00 at the night concert they came on. I dont remember what songs they did except for Johnny Saucepan. In the introduction Mike said something along the lines of: We know you will all relate to this song because we know there has been some food consumption at Summerfolk. Like White Fish on a Bun. They got a standing ovation, but didnt come out for an encore because they had to stick to schedule. We were very annoyed because some acts later that night all got encores.

From Sara Revell:

I haven't seen a review posted yet, so I thought I would start the trend. This was my first time at Summerfolk - a huge folk festival in Ontario, as well as my first time at a festial of any kind. In fact it was a lot of firsts: my first time seeing the Fruv since their pre-Wood tour (has it really been that long?), and my first time meeting them!!! Can I just say how excited I was? But we will get there in time.

I didn't get to Summerfolk until last Saturday and never got a schedule, so I'm not sure if there was a workshop on Saturday but I think there was (thanks Zard for filling me in on what a workshop is). The Fruv were playing on the mainstage at 7:00 and it was only a half hour perfomance. At one point they noticed no one singing along and asked how many people had ever seen them before and how many had never heard of them before! Most of the audience raised their hands! For being complete strangers, the group got a great reaction from the audience, with the guy beside me screaming for more when their set was over! And it was interesting to hear the laughter at old favourites such as King of Spain and green Eggs and Ham!

I can't remember the exact setlist, but here are some songs (in no particular order):

Buy our Disc
YWGTM
Michigin Militia
King of Spain/Green Eggs & Ham
BJ, Don't Cry
Love Potion # 9, etc.
Johny Saucepan

From Sharilyn Johnson:

"Stop talking about damn Moxy Fruvous and enjoy the architecture!"
-Katie's mom en route to Owen Sound

Shall I start at the start? On Thursday evening I took Greyhound Air (surprisingly good service) from Winnipeg to Hamilton, and stayed over at a hotel (the Days Inn, where the motto is "the walls are so thin you can tell what your neighbor is watching"). I watched the Tyson-Holyfield fight on ABC (nothin' like a little blood to kick a trip off), and that was the extent of my excitement for that night. Katie and her mom picked me up at the hotel on Friday afternoon, and we drove through the rain to Owen Sound, ON. We set up our campsite and headed to the festival grounds.

As we were walking through the parking lot to enter, I hear somebody introduce Lawrence Gowan. I *love* that man. Yummy. *Ahem*...anyways, we missed that by just a bit, but got there in time to see Bob Snider's mainstage. I was singing along to "What An Idiot He Is" and Les Barker (poet extrordinaire), who was sitting just down from me, turned and gave me a big goofy Les grin. I knew it was going to be a fantabulous weekend!

Katie and I seperated for a while, and when we met up, we'd both run into Murray and had been informed that the guys were going to do one song on mainstage that night (Murray also gave me my first "welcome to Ontario!"). We grabbed seats, and watched them do "Boss". Not very climactic, but nifty (we were completely shocked that they'd shown up on Friday *at all*). After that, all I wanted to do was find Marcus. I hadn't seen him, talked to him, or had e-mail contact with him since MAY! One by one the guys came out (as per usual), and they didn't really know where he was. By the time Jian surfaced, I was REALLY wanting to see Marcus. I kinda bypassed the "hi" thing, and sorta attacked poor J. He was none too pleased. Yeah, I'm an ass. =) Never did get Marcus that night.

Saturday morning we got up and waited outside of the gate nearest to the workshop stage (not many people were lined up). We managed front row centre, not too shabby. THEN I got Marcus! Sat and talked with him for a few, met Cal, and then sat with Katie to talk. The workshop was cool; a group called Arrondale (sp?), and Modabo (also, the whole thing was off-mic). The guys did Spidey first, but with a little hitch. Mike went out to the side of the crowd for it. He screamed something about taking a hostage, and picked up a 6 or 7 year old girl in his arms and started sprinting for the hills. He emerged a few seconds later, slowly, with bawling child in arms. Poor kid. Jesus, if I were 6 and saw Mike coming at me to snatch me away from my parents, I'd scream too. =) For the second song they did Marion Fruvous, which I hadn't seen live since '95. Wish I had something else to say about it, but it's just Marion. They didn't do anything different. Third song was Gulf War. Now, I've seen them do Gulf War about 10 times. This was very close to the best that I've seen them do. Took my breath away...incredible. Except for the part where Dave spit on me (I saw this white thing come out of his mouth and I knew there was nothing I could do about it =P ). This makes Mur the only holdout in the loogy dept., and I thanked him accordingly. =D

The second workshop was sort of in the beer tent area which they called "Down By The Bay". Katie and I had a better name: the shit stage. They'd set up metal chairs everywhere, leaving only a few feet at the front for people to sit. And the stage was high up and had monitors at the front, so even if you DID get a good spot, you couldn't see a damn thing. We managed okay, fortunately. We got there about an hour and a half beforehand, so we were able to stake out a good spot (and see Lawrence Gowan...did I mention that I think he's really really HOT?) The Fruvous one was a concert workshop; they did: Authors (Mike forgot one of his lines and they had to stop and try to figure out what the line *was* - whole thing had "autopilot" written all over it!), River Valley, Today's The Day..., Get In The Car, Present Tense (with "You Shook Me All Night Long" at the beginning), and Dancing Queen.

Mainstage Saturday kinda blew, relatively speaking (though Katie and I did meet up with Sandy from Ohio, who is very cool!). For some reason, they had Fruvous as the 2nd act, so they only got 25 minutes. Not very intellegent, imo. Sara already put this in her post, but they did: Peace of Mind, BJ, Michigan, YWGTTM, Johnny S., King/GE&H, and LP#9. Fairly uneventful. After the set, we wanted to find Marcus so he could stamp us. We were hanging out by the backstage door, and I spotted the front of the Fruvous Petting Zoo TV Tour shirt from '92 that this guy was wearing. I freaked out, because I've only seen them on tv (they're the ones that are black and have the 3 Mike doodles in white down the front...if any of you have Canada AM from '93 on videotape, it's the shirt that Murray's wearing). After I explained the signifigance of this to Katie and Sandy, we went and attacked the poor man. Sandy took a pic of the back of it, we talked to him, I offered him $50 for it ("uh, no"), the whole deal. I think we scared him, cuz he kinda looked at us weird and then walked away. =) In doing this, we met a woman named Clarise (I hope I spelled that right) who'd driven 11 hours from Rome, NY just to see the guys. She was *so* excited and really wanted to meet the guys, so we told her we'd stay with her there until they came out. I'd seen Mike talk with someone backstage not too far away, but I didn't want to interrupt. Unfortunately, I lost him, and didn't lay eyes on any of them for another half hour. Mike was waaaaay far away, so I just yelled "FORDY!!!!" at him. That got his attention. =) He came out and was very sweet to Clarise and accepted her gifts. She was absolutely ecstatic, and Mike was going to be sending the other guys out, so me and Katie and Sandy took off to the beer tent. Marcus joined us after a while, and we all just chilled out (it'd been quite a long day for all parties). Macus was replaced by a beaming Clarise, and then I took off to see Leahy on mainstage and call it a night.

From the Summerfolk Website:

MOXY FRUVOUS - 1997 Performers

Fruvous was born when four former suburban high school friends took over a Toronto street corner with their wildly theatrical, vocal-based street performing. The guys put it together for fun, having come from performing backgrounds in musical theatres, funk bands, folk groups, etc. The style was born out of laziness. "We wanted a gig with no amps to carry, so we learned to sing the whole works." Sing they did, and word got around. CBC Radio started commissioning topical tunes from Moxy Fruvous that autumn (1991). Soon they were playing to overflowing houses not only in Canada but the States and Europe.

The guys have become widely known for the musicality, humour and energy they put into their gigs. Their recently released CD, YOU WILL GO TO THE MOON is receiving massive critical reviews world wide and we are delighted they accepted our invitation to appear on our stages for the first of what we hope will be a long lasting love affair.

Some other tidbits from the performance include:

• Feel free to help contribute to this section!