It's official - The Festival of the Islands is no more ...

Sad news in the Gananoque Reporter this morning - the 17-year-old Festival of the Islands is done. Declining attendance and the misfortune of bad weather last year has racked up debt (small debt in the bigger scheme of things) that has made continuing the Festival impossible. Now is a good time, if you haven't already, to thank the hundreds of volunteers who have made the festival such an amazing event. Naming names would be foolish - there have been so many involved and even though a few names come to mind I would be afraid of overlooking someone. The beauty of the festival was that every contributor, great or small, made the festival work.

Over the past 17 years we have been treated to performances at the Waterfront Stage by some legendary performers - artists I certainly never expected to see perform in Gananoque: The Association, Great Big Sea, Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman, John Kay and Steppenwolf, to name just a very few. Although the waterfront stage shows were the showcase of the Festival, there were events all over town for the whole week for young and old. We'll miss the nightly parade of people with lawnchairs in hand, trudging down to the waterfront. Even if they didn't know who was performing, they knew they were in for an evening of great musical entertainment and a chance to meet with their neighbours and friends and others whom they had not seen since the last Festival. And let's not forget the fireworks - hundreds of boats and tens of thousands of people enjoying the most spectacular fireworks ever seen in this area.

A few years ago I wrote and recorded a jingle for the Festival, recorded at Summit Sound in Westport with the help of Cliff Edwards. We used an old Yamaha DX-7, a primitive Roland drum machine and the studio singers. I've only ever written one jingle and I still remember the first time I heard it on the radio! Gan-an-o-que doesn't scan easily, but it really ended up being quite tuneful. Give it a listen and think back to all your Festival memories. The hole in the middle is called the "do-nut" and it's left for voice-over announcement of daily events.



btw - as I tried to figure out how to post an audio file when BlogSpot only provides for video postings, I finally figured out how to create a video slideshow with an audio track. This video only has one image, but I know now how to add others. Get prepared for future postings!!