New Bedford Folk Festival Day #2 ~ 2022 July 10 ~ New Bedford, MA
Set List (The Kennedys at the Garden Stage)
Safe Until Tomorrow - Little Green Bottles - Silence Is a Warning - The Sky Doesn't Look Right - Tangerine - Like An Old Fashioned Waltz {Sandy Denny} - Downtown Train {Tom Waits} - Catch the Wind {Donovan} - Golden Slumbers / Carry That Weight / The End {The Beatles} - Help Us Find a Way [song title unknown - a new Kennedys song] - Midnight Ghost - Stand [with vocals from two local children]
Scroll past the video for comments on the festival.
Video
Waitin' on the Lord (Roy Book Binder)
Safe Until Tomorrow (The Kennedys)
Tangerine (The Kennedys)
Stand (The Kennedys)
Review
We started Day 2 of the festival back at the Garden Stage for a very enjoyable performance by veteran English folkie John Roberts, who sang and played concertina and guitar. His longtime musical partner Tony Barrand passed away just this year, and I was sad that I didn't get to see him, too. John is a kindly and witty gentleman, who joked about not always being able to remember lyrics and mentioned that for streaming shows during the pandemic he was able to have a lyric sheet right in front of him.
Next up at the same venue was veteran blues guitarist, singer, and storyteller Roy Book Binder. We had seen him just once before, quite a few years ago at the now defunct Woods Hole Folk Music series on Cape Cod close to home. Roy played a laid back, entertaining, and informative 45 minutes. It was a great start to our day to see these two excellent performances by these fellows who've been around the musical block a few thousand times.
Today we brought a sandwich to save the time of having to visit the food court; as good as their food was yesterday, the festival is all about the music. We also were lucky with weather this year; both days were comfortable in terms of temperature.
Next up at the Garden Stage was the act that has become the highlight of the festival for us, Americana/folk duo The Kennedys. For almost two and a half years the weekly streaming show that Maura and Pete have performed has been a staple of our Sunday afternoons. They opened their set with an uplifting song about making it through tough times and people helping one another, "Safe Until Tomorrow," a song they have often used to close their streaming shows. They followed this with four new songs that will be on an upcoming album; these songs varied in both content and musicality, with elements of fun, serious topics, a slide guitar played by Pete with a little green bottle, even a bit of Motown. Pete and Maura followed this with a handful of covers that they have performed on their weekly shows. These ranged from Donovan's beautifully touching "Catch the Wind" to the Beatles' "Golden Slumbers" rockin' medley, in which Maura duplicates that Ringo drum solo amazingly well by thumping on her guitar. After this, one more new song, followed by the always crowd-pleasing "Midnight Ghost," in which Pete proves he can rock with the best of them with a blistering guitar solo, and then they sing a verse, and that guitar solo is so good he plays another one!
As has become a tradition for The Kennedys at this festival, the final song was "Stand," on which backing vocals were provided by two young girls from a local family. There are four girls in this family, all of whom have grown up with this backing vocal gig; two of them were on hand today.
Next up we scooted up the hill to the Purchase Street Stage for Vance Gilbert. Unlike yesterday, which seemed lightly attended, today seemed to be back to a more familiar level of crowdedness, and we weren't able to get a seat, so watched a few songs of Vance from the sidelines. Since standing in the hot sun watching from a distance wasn't all that much fun, we decided to head over to a different performer.
That was Peter Mulvey at the Custom House Stage. We had seen a song or two by him at one of yesterday's Zeiterion workshops and thought he seemed interesting. Well, he was that and more. Very topical -- one song was called "A--hole in Space," in which Peter told the truth about Jeff Bezos going into space while his employees are grossly overworked, and a few others along those lines. He was funny, and played guitar and sang extremely well. Peter is definitely a top discovery of this year's festival.
More Kennedys
Here is a page with a handy list of links to all pages on this website with content relating to Pete and Maura Kennedy.
Click for 2022 Concert Page with links to all 2022 concerts ... Click for Main Concert Page with links to all years