By Michael Gorman
THE VANGUARD
NovaNewsNow.com
In its fourth year the Coal Shed Music Festival continues to grow and organizers hope that’s not just good for area music fans but also for the Yarmouth Food Bank.
With 50 different acts, 15 of which are new to the festival, booked to play from Aug. 25-29, Phil Demille says they’re pretty much up to the limit of what they can handle for that timeframe. Not that he’s complaining.
“This year I had more than enough (performers contact him) to fill eight days. I’ve been turning people down since June,” he said in a recent interview.
Demille says he started getting calls as early as last winter from people hoping to be involved in the event. In the future, he says, he’ll attempt to find a way to get even more people involved, even if that means spreading the festival over two four-day weekends.
Once again there’s something for every musical pallet, including well-known tri-county acts such as Chunk O’ Funk, Hourglass (both on Friday), Naming the Twins (Thursday), Rough Edges (Wednesday), Bob Vacon, Winsome Blues Band (both on Saturday), the Greens (Sunday) and Moses Corey (Saturday).
New this year is two Halifax-based bands with Yarmouth ties that will make the trip for the festival. Hard Days Knights, a Beatles tribute band as well as Crossroads will perform Saturday. This is something Demille hopes to see more of in the future as a way of pulling even more people into the event.
Besides all the performers slated for the festival, the songwriting contest and name that tune contest also return. Demille says the response of artists has been matched by the response from sponsors, something he wasn’t expecting this year.
“I thought, the economy being where it is this year, I thought that the sponsorship part of it would be a real problem (but) we’ve got several new sponsors who came out of the woodwork on their own without even being asked, which has never happened before.”
Of course besides providing a great week of music for the community, the main aim of the festival is to support the Yarmouth Food Bank.
Last year the event raised $7,000 and a vanload of food. This year Demille says he’s hoping they can hit the $10,000 mark.
“Most people are becoming more and more generous.”
Bruce Hopkins of the food bank says the event comes at the perfect time for them as they start thinking about preparing for the fall and winter months.
“It would almost start us up for the next session in the fall.”
Hopkins says the festival brings in a “considerable amount of good, good cash donations” as well as food, something he believes is going to be especially important as Yarmouth faces the prospect of a difficult winter season. Already they are seeing an increase in the number of people needing their services.
“They are creeping up slowly. I think this winter is going to be a tough winter,” says Hopkins, adding that the HST increase would only complicate things, especially of we get cold weather early.
“People aren’t going to be able to eat and be warm.”
Looking towards the future of the festival, Demille says the goal is to eventually have themes for each day of music. He’d also like to see more of the area’s young bands involved in the event, although he’s still trying to come up with a better system for touching base with that scene.
“It isn’t that we don’t want to, it’s just the information didn’t get to the right hands soon enough.”
