Recording: Steven Lambke

Artist: Plymouth Acclaim For Sale

Song:

Recorded at Christie Pits Park (Bloor Ossington Folk Festival – Day 1), September 17, 2016.

Steven Lambke - Plymouth Acclaim For Sale

It was a bad news/good news sort of vibe down at Christie Pits. There was a sense of triumph that the festival — for the previous five years a well-curated, intimate event with an enjoyably-casual vibe — was happening at all, given that it was at the very precipice of the plug being pulled in the face of some expected grant money not coming through. The joy at the fact that the organizers found a way to go ahead with it was tempered by the sadness at the corresponding announcement that this would be the festival's final edition. On Saturday, the fact the event had been downsized — losing its main stage and moving everything under the beer garden tent — turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the day arrived with the (seemingly annual) dose of rain. The park was eerily quiet but it made everything feel extra dry and cozy as the bands played.

Knitting cosmic observation from day-to-day observations (selling an old car, cutting a ripe pear with a sharp knife) is folk music's stock-in-trade making this set feel like one of this eclectic fest's most straight-up "folk" moments. Steven Lambke returned to Christie Pits with a whole pile of new songs (even telling the crowd he was open to suggestions for the title of one of them) including this one that fits nicely into the small canon of love songs to dearly-departed automobiles.