Well, it's definitely been an intersting time. I'll see if I can remember all the "gory details".

I stayed at my Aunt and Uncle's in Scranton, PA (North of Philadelphia) on Friday night, so when Saturday morning came, I didn't have far to go. I left their house at eight in the morning, and got to Schwenksville (a *very* small town North of Philly) by 9:30. The main gate didn't open till eleven, so I had some time to wait.

After the gates opened, I ran to the Craft Stage, where Fruvous was supposed to be doing their first workshop at 11:45. I met up with Sharilyn and Katie, and also saw Laurie, Erica, and others. Well, Fruvous wasn't on site yet, so the workshop, entitled "Northern Exposure", went on with just one group, Malaika, a four woman Canadian acappella group. They were pretty good, but I kept wondering, "Where's Moxy?"

Moxy's second workshop was scheduled for 1:00 at the Tank Stage, called "A(lmost) Cappella". At that point, everyone started showing up. Chris T, Zard, Rob Johnson, Jenn, Jered, Lisa, Dan J, and many others I know that I'm forgetting. Right when the workshop started, Moxy arrived. Moxy along with Cordelia's Dad and Malaika did round-robin for about an hour. During the set, Jason R and Colleen showed up. Moxy did Marion Fruvous again, which is always good, and were very well received by a crowd who acted like they'd seen Fruvous before.

After the workshop, we all hung out near the stage, some watched the next workshop, some talked to Murray and Jian, and we basically passed the time for an hour or two. Sharilyn, Katie and I took my car in an attempted caravan back to the hotel, in King of Prussia, PA. However, we all got separated and we got totally lost, but we eventually did find it (actually, the last five paragraphs were typed in the hotel room while Sharilyn talked on the phone to her folks :-)

Jason, Colleen, Nicole and Chad came back to the hotel shortly thereafter; Jenn and Caiti showed up as well. Around five, a bunch of us went to dinner while some stayed behind and caught up on sleep. After dinner Colleen, Nicole and Chad headed back to the festival, while Jason, Jenn and I sat around and chatted for a few hours. Once everyone who was sleeping finally roused out of bed, we all decided we were hungry again. :-) We grabbed some Chinese food and headed back to the hotel and waited for everyone else to come back from the festival.

Everyone started trickling in around midnight, and we all went to sleep at various times. We had to get an early start the next day, in order to get good spots for the Sunday shows.

From Zard Snodgrass:

During that 1 pm workshop (which they came cruising into just at 1 pm), when they did Boss, and Jian says "One day I came to work too late," he sort of gestured with a crooked smile at the workshop...oops.

That was the A(lmost) Cappella workshop, which they shared with Malaika (great! from Ottawa, was it?) and Cordelia's Dad (very minor-chord, chantlike). They also did Moon and Gulf War (IF I remember correctly - a big if that is..), and ad-libbed a truck song, for the truck that came by (right in front of the stage) and there was a big production about lifting wires up (to make a big croquet wicket, as Dave said) to let the truck under. Also, during one of the workshops, a musician walked right between the stage and the audience with a guitar case, etc.. and Jian said don't worry about him, it's just a stage he's passing through (big groan....). (have to appreciate good jokes where we find them, folks :)! And Chris came up with a "massage a trois" when Colleen and our DC friend Dave were both working on our friend Ellen's back!!)

For the rest of the day we Fruheads dispersed to go follow our respective passions, and I ended up jaunting between the blues workshop, and the one with Salamander Crossing/Cordelia's Dad. Of the blues, apparently Saffire was the greatest hit with folks I know, and their mainstage that night was great! (BITCH stands for Being In Total Control of Herself)

After a trip with DC friends back to our hotel for a 40th birthday celebration (not mine, thank you!), we came back to settle in for mainstage. It was a magical evening with stars out in abundance, and the remnants of the Persead (sp?) meteor shower giving us falling stars from time to time. I never actually saw one, but it was fun kicking back and watching the stars in the hopes of seeing one, while listening to heavenly music.

Natalie McMaster was quite a hit, although the cameraman could have shown more of her feet than he did, and apparently her CD's were a hit too, as they were sold out on Sunday - unfortunately! (I heard the UPS strike put a cramp in the CD availability - bummer for the performers, who could only get so much shipped to them in advance. That's my big advice for anyone who wants to perform at a folk fest - make sure you have enough CD's with you!! Selling out is great, but if you bring more, it's better for you! And us!)

As I already said, Saffire was terrific, and then Laura Love turned in another fantastic set, although after the longer, more intimate set the night before, it was hard to see her from so far away. And I wanted MORE!! But she jammed, and Amazing Grace in front of all those people was a hair raiser! We crept out as a great banjo player (name forgotten) was jamming at tremendous speeds, but my friends aren't quite as banjo crazy as I am, so I followed them out reluctantly.

Can I just say something about those jokes in between sets - who comes UP with those?! Or better, who lets them get on stage?!?! Wow! I did like the "get involved" singing guy who did "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" with the hand motions - he got everybody going, even if we did feel silly, and it was nice to move around and warm up a bit!

From Chris Traugott:

When your life Monday through Friday feels like a Dilbert comic strip, sometimes it is nice to take a weekend trip to Bloom County. Zard, Ellen and I arrived in Bloom County, aka Philly Folk Festival, around 11:30 on Saturday morning, and, in a moment of Fruvous synchronicity which my non-fruhead friends are only beginning to understand, met up immediately with my non-fruhead DC friends who had left at a different time and from a different place. Moments later we ran into a fruhead contingent, leaving my non-fruhead friends wondering what supernatural forces were at work. Having missed (or so we thought) the Fruvous workshop at the craft stage (Fruvous did not, in fact, make that workshop) we headed over to the mysteriously named "Tank Stage" and settled in for the A(lmost) Cappella workshop. Fruheads from around the festival began to gather and Fruvous arrived to cheers minutes before the workshop was to begin. Fruvous shared the stage with Malaika, who I enjoyed, and Cordelia's Dad, who I didn't really. It was a fairly standard Fruvous a cappella set, including Boss and Gulf War Song; what made it fun for me was listening to my non-fruhead friends hearing Fruvous for the first time and giggling over the lyrics. Once the workshop was over, they sheepishly admitted that they had enjoyed the show and that Fruvous was not what they had thought the band would be (quoth one, "They aren't a bit what I had expected, I thought it would be more like Peter, Paul and Mary." Um, no.) After the workshop we munched our way through a picnic basket and I headed over to hear an unscheduled workshop on the blues, where I was introduced, to my immense satisfaction, to a group called Saffire and had an opportunity to hear Les Sampou again. My group of DC friends had agreed to meet up again for the four o'clock mainstage, which we did. I'm embarrassed to admit that despite the plethora of good music to which to listen, as soon as I sprawled out on the picnic blanket I was fast asleep and didn't awake until shaken by a friend who had decided it was time to go back to the hotel.

Once there we had a little birthday celebration for a friend of mine who turned forty over the weekend, had some cake (complete with candles) and headed back to the festival for the evening show. Enjoyed the opportunity to hear Saffire and Laura Love again, and finally saw Natalie McMaster. Also had the pleasure of *finally* intorducing ceecee to my buddy Dave, who had studied massage therapy, and before long the two were trading massages and comparing techniques. Ellen soon became the beneficiary, as they used her to practice, and indulged in what I termed a "massage a trois." And yes, I was quite pleased with myself for coining that one. :-) So as my fru-head friends began to get to know my DC friends, we all shared good music and a beautiful night sky replete with falling stars and fire works courtesy of a neighbor of the fair grounds. On the shuttle ride back to the cars, the whole bus sang Happy Birthday to Dave who was suitably embarassed but not so secretly happy about the attention. :-)

From the Philadelphia Folk Festival program (pg. 27):

Diversity has always been one of Moxy Fruvous' strongest calling cards. Hailing from Toronto, Mike Ford, Murray Foster, Jiam Ghomeshi and David Matheson are skilled songwriters and energetic performers who have been entertaining across Canada and the United States since their first release, Bargainville, in 1993. This spring saw the release of You Will Go to the Moon on Bottom Line Records. As those who have seen this band in action can attest, You Will Go to the Moon and back!

• The guys on the Tank Stage
• Here comes the truck!

• Chatter
  • Jian, talking about how the band showed up somewhat tardy: Good afternoon! It's a long walk from Canada. A long walk...
  • Jian and Mike poke some fun at Murray while he gets his microphone problems straightened out.
  • The guys continue playing around with the mics and monitors.
  • Mike: We're very happy to be here for the second time this year at the Falconridge Folk Festival!! We love Delaware almost as much as we love Jersey.
  • Jian talks about how his name is spelled wrong in the program.
  • Jian mentions that Philadelphia is booming, and talks about having an employer in order to segue into their first song.
• I Love My Boss
  • When Jian sings "One day I came to work to late", he does so with a funny expression on his face. The audience immediately pick up on this and get a good chuckle. (He's obviously referring to their tardiness to the workshop)
  • Mike makes a vomit-like sound after singing "they go real heavy on the sauce".
  • "Who knows what XPN will be bringing?"
  • Instead of "examples", Jian says "Dan Bern".
• Chatter
  • Jian: Welcome to the Almost a cappella workshop. That was almost a cappella, but there were some shakers. If there had been no shakers, then it would've been a cappella.
  • Murray: And there was no reference to God.
  • Jian introduces Cordelia's Dad to the stage.
• Chatter
  • Mike introduces Malakia: Put your hands together for a band that came all the way from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, North America to play to you and shake their money makers, Malaika!
• Chatter
  • A truck drives on the road in front of the stage, and due to this, the workshop is paused briefly. They have to raise the snake going from the stage to the soundboard so the truck doesn't run over it. The truck passes by rather quickly.
  • Murray: That was painless.
  • A person working at the festival announces that a bus will be driving down the same road right after the workshop.
  • Jian: The bus will be running over one member of one of the bands here today. It's your job to determine who that is.
  • Dave: What are we doing? Perhaps a song about our favorite American hero, Lawrence Welk?
  • Jian says "Eh?" while introducing the coming song, and the band goes off on Canadian-isms for a while. Jian explains how it's great to play to American audience cause they always notice when the band says "Eh?"
  • Dave: Americans get the same reaction when they say "Huh?" up in Canada.
  • Jian explains how when the band came to the states three years ago there was a guy they couldn't get away from, and now he's making cathode ray incursions into Canada.
  • Jian: So we wrote this song, it's for him, it's for you, it's for me!
  • Jian makes passing fun at "I write the songs" by Barry Manilow.
• The Greatest Man in America
  • When they sing "paranoid minorities and gays", Jian nods towards Dave.
  • "...taught me to love and praise G. Gordon Liddy. Pat Buchanan is quite a nice man too."
  • Mike pulls on Murray's shirt when he sings "Well, not everybody!"
• Chatter
  • Murray: Cordelia's Dad rocks the house...
• Chatter
  • Jian: Later on, catch Malaika's and Moxy Fruvous' production of "Four Brides for Four Brothers".
  • Jian: That was a terrible musical.
  • Mike: Not as bad as 1776, has anyone ever seen that one?
  • Mike: Well, just the one where they have the guy from St. Elsewhere as Samuel Adams. Or John Adams. The brewer patriot, I don't know...
  • Mike sings a snippet from 1776: Jefferson, have you gone completely mad?!?
  • Another truck comes past the stage. This time, the guys honor it with some truck rap music, 'Here Comes the Truck'. Mike adds some Grateful Dead melodies to the music. (I think it's something like See See Rider; I know I'm prob. butchering a GD tune title, but oh well...)
  • Dave: You can find that on our fifth album, Convoy.
  • Jian: That's traditional. In Canada, when trucks drive by, people sing that.
  • The guys crowd around a couple of center mics for the next song.
• The Gulf War Song
• Chatter
  • Jian, speaking of the song just sung by Cordelia's Dad: Another great band from Northampton. We figure there's something in the water; the Nields are from there, Salamander Crossing...
  • Jian announces a change in the program, and some lost children at the festival.
  • A big bus parks near the stage.
  • Jian: Apparently, Prince is here; he's arriving by bus...
  • Jian introduces Malaika once again.
• Chatter
  • Jian takes the stage to do "one more quick one".
  • Jian explains that they're about to do an old one, and how the band started as buskers, and did songs for CBC. He warns the crowd that the song is Toronto-centric.
  • Jian: This song also allows us to explain where our name came from. What do people always say to us?
  • Murray: They say, 'Where did you get your name from?'
  • Dave, pointing at the floor of the stage: We get our name from the plywood that they put right here. This is Fruvous plywood, no?
  • Mike: Moxy Fruvous is the name associated with the rattle made by large tour bus engines.
  • Jian: No, that's just the Fruvous.
  • Mike: We've changed it to the prattle.
  • Murray: We got our name from a computer program. We said, 'What combination of letters is the least memorable?'
  • Jian: How could we sell the least records, right?
  • Jian: No! These three men are liars.
  • Jian explains that they got there name from Marion Fruvous, Toronto's first environmental crusader, who use to ride around on a horse during the 20's.
  • Murray: Here's the prologue. This is the preface they used to say...
• The Ballad of Marion Früvous
  • Mike makes one of his signature nasal sounds before the second "Master of the house"-ish verse.
  • Jian and Murray comment on Dave's facial hair during the portion of the song where Marion (played by Dave) makes her appearance.
• Chatter
  • Jian thanks all the bands that attended the workshop.
  • Mike: And the biggest hand of all for the goddamn tourbus!!!

Some other tidbits from the performance include:

• Feel free to help contribute to this section!