Coal Shed Music Festival continues to grow

By Michael Gorman

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

The 2008 Coal Shed Music Festival isn't even here yet and already organizer Phil Demille is thinking about ways to make it grow beyond the Aug. 22-24 schedule.

"This event, I really believe, will eventually become either a full week festival or a two weekend festival," he said last week on the Yarmouth waterfront. "There's no question that we will continue to need more time. I don't know that there's an end to the amount of talent that's available in the tri-counties."

Pretty big steps for an event that is just one-year-old.

This time a year ago Demille was worried that it might not work; that people might not come or the weather would be bad or the weekend would be full of technical problems. Instead, it went off without a hitch and people in the area and from away filled the waterfront to see the acts and support the Yarmouth Food Bank.

"It's like anything that you do for the first time — you don't know what you're really getting yourself in for. You know, here I was out there fighting for this and in the back of my mind I wondered, 'is it really going to be as good as it think it is.' But it was. It was far beyond anything I ever expected in every respect: the quality of the entertainment was just really excellent the whole weekend and, certainly, the response from the public."

With about three weeks until show time, Demille said things are close to being complete. Although they are still finalizing a few slots, it looks like 30 acts will be spread over the three days with music beginning at 1 p.m. each day and running until about 11 p.m.

The big change from last year to this year is the addition of the third day. Demille couldn't come close to accommodating all the interested acts last year. This year, with the third day, he's able to fit in more bands. But even with the extra day, said Demille, filling slots was no problem.

"It was not hard at all. It was very easy."

Friday's lineup will focus mainly on young bands, with musicians from throughout the tri-counties featured on the Coal Shed stage. Acts on the first day include Chunk of Funk, Gravis, the Emotional Junkies, Merry and Durkee, Prototype Culture Shock and Tinpot.

"That was one area that we really didn't have an opportunity to really work with last year very much," said Demille. "There are young bands and folk singers, solo (acts), duos and that sort of thing throughout the day and night on Friday."

Other new additions to the weekend include a name-that-tune contest on Saturday, a songwriter's contest and a lead guitar competition on Friday.

Saturday's lineup includes Demille's band Hourglass, the Scotia Brothers, Connie Saulnier, Touch, Wayne Stoddard, Riverside and others. As was the case with last year, Sunday will have a focus on gospel music with the likes of Gerard LeBlanc, Shirley Durling, Family Crest, Bill d'Entremont, Alton Nickerson and others.

Just as he wanted to do last year, Demille has assembled a lineup that has something for everyone and is also guaranteed to expose listeners to new sounds and artists they might not yet know.

Once again the Yarmouth Food Bank will be the charity benefiting from the event — "it will always be, as far as I'm concerned," said DeMille. Volunteers will be on hand to collect both food and monetary donations.

"It just operated so smoothly last year," Demille said with a laugh. "Maybe we were spoiled by the fact that it ran too smoothly."