Rosebud’s outdoor music festival returns

Times Contributor 

 

15 Minutes of Fame, Rosebud’s annual outdoor music festival, returns Sunday, August 31.

Carmen Paterson, event manager, says the event includes six new and 14 returning performers.

The returning Rosebud River Valley Boys is a bluegrass group that “everybody loves,” she says. “They’ve just played so long together that they’re just awesome.” 

Fool’s Tongue, a band with “a really unique sound”, is also returning. Folk musician and Rosebud alumna Jessica Benini will perform, as will Me and the Mrs., who, Paterson says, are “kind of hot right now.” The Badland Boars, “a good party band,” will be back, and 15-year-old dubstep composer and performer Taliex will be back for his second year.

Brilliance, a fire-dancer, is also returning for the second year. “I actually booked him the second he got off the stage,” after his performance in 2013, Paterson says. “I was like, this (audience) response makes me think you need to come back.”

Randall Wiebe will continue his popular tradition of painting, in 15 minutes, the portrait of an audience volunteer.

New this year is The Giving Stories, an improv dance troupe featuring audience interaction. Also new to the festival, and “a big deal in the folk world,” is John Wort Hannam. “He’s kind of our claim to fame this year,” Paterson says.

The festival also features 10 vendors in Vendors’ Lane, where festival goers can buy fresh Rosebud honey “right out of the hives”, tea from the new company Fireside Tea, handcrafted jewelry, mixed media artwork and wood art. Artist Alley, in the west wing of the opera house, includes a cartoonist, face painting, and “anything from photography to abstract art”.

Dale Marushy, who’s worked for the festival in a myriad of ways since its inception in 2006, has also designed the event poster every year except one. He tries to convey “the ‘tone’ of the festival, “which (to me) is, fun, music, summer, outdoors, rural,” he said in an email. “Almost every poster I’ve done for 15 has had a guitar (or guitar shape) in it, and many of them have had hills or valleys as well.”

He keeps attending because he loves the relaxed community atmosphere, the music, and “the vulnerability of the new (rookie) artists up next to the professionals,” he said. “Some people have compared (15 Minutes of Fame) to an old fashioned Jamboree, where your neighbors have the chance to get up on stage and show off their talents (sometimes hidden and surprising). You’ll also get to see a lot of professional talent from Alberta that you may or may not have heard before.”

Doors open at 11 a.m., and Paterson invites us to arrive before noon, in time for the traditional festival opener, an “electric, updated version” of O Canada by Garfield Sproule, and to stay til dusk for the traditional closing by the Mull River Shufflers.

Paterson encourages us to bring cash for festival entry and for vendor purchases. Wild Horse Jack’s restaurant and Thorny Rose Cafe will serve food all day, and accept debit. 15 Minutes of Fame is held in the square beside the Opera House. Tickets are $18 in advance and $20 at the door, $45 / $50 for families. For tickets, see rosebudmusicfestival.com.