Another year of the Edmonton Folk Musical Festival is over. As us folk festers now have to return to our daily lives, it is hard not to be experiencing some withdrawal symptoms. It may range from looking at photos from the weekend or listening to our newly autographed albums. All we can think of to numb the pain is: “There is always next year.”

The Dunwells had their concert Sunday afternoon. Vocalist and Guitarst, David Dunwell, remarked how happy we was to see the mass of audience members. This is because he recalled the image of thousands of their audience members leaving when Lollapalooza was evacuated in Chicago due to the rain. However, they still managed to make their concert time at a relocated Hilton Chicago venue. While The Dunwells were happy to play for those 50 people in an intimate venue, it was clear that they were beaming to play to a packed Stage 2 audience with clear skies. They played tunes from their soon-to-be-released album, “Blind Sighted Faith” on August 28, 2012. Their catchy and power-charged choruses from “I Could Be a King” and “Blind Sighted Faith” were delivered with permeating passion but they also had moments of fragile silence in “Goodnight My City.” Overall, it is clear why there is so much buzz surrounding this newest talent export from Leeds, UK.

The best part of Sunday sessions is that most of the schedule is filled with concerts by individual artists. Thus, after being treated to 45-50 minutes of excellent music-making artists head to the merchandise tent to sign autographs etc. and meet with fans.

In T. Nile’s solo concert she treated audiences to some of her folk favorites, such as “Trees,” but also debuted some of her new electro-folk tune which used synthesizers underneath her folk motifs. Her new album is set to be released in Spring 2013. You can download the new single, “Running,” from the upcoming album.

Dry Bones provided the most diverse and comically entertaining concert that I saw at the Folk Fest. The members of Dry Bones include Nathan Rogers, JD Edwards, Leonard Podolak, and Gilles Fournier. There was Mongolian throat singing, kazoo solos, body percussion solos, jumping into the audience, and they finished their set off with a moving performance of Stan Rogers’ “Northwest Passage.” It was very powerful to hear the audience singing along with this patriotic ballad and it was a great way to end Sunday sessions.

It appears that my EFMF quest for my new artist(s) was successful; however, I feel like I am coming away with a group of artists rather than just one. This is a good problem to have. While it is sad for us folk festers to see the Folk Fest hill packed up and stored away, at least we have the memories and new music to tide us over until next year.

You can learn more about these EFMF artists at YegLive.ca

-miss. sable