Roy L Hales/ Cortes Currents - Lovefest will be returning to Cortes Island on August 12.
“Lovefest just has its own momentum. It exists because the community wants it. There's nothing political about it. We get to enjoy some good music, have fun together and just be with each other as a community,” explained Rex Weyler, one of the key organizers.
Today’s program consists of an interview with Rex, interspersed with songs from three of the acts coming to this year’s Lovefest.
We’ll start the music off with Adonis Peuentes, the first band that Rex mentioned in our interview.
RW: “We have five years of experience, so we're getting a little better at it. We've got a great team. Soma Feldmar, Amy Robertson, Rick Bockner, myself and others are involved every year in putting it on. We have 50 volunteers, so all of that collected experience. Lonnie Taylor's been helping from day one and Dancing Wolf does the decoration. He's great at that.”
“We have the Community Action Bus, which we had last year for the first time ever and the Community Action Bus comes from Victoria. It'll circle Cortes all day long, picking people up, bringing them and taking them home from the event. That really cuts down on the necessity for cars.”
“That's what I love about Lovefest. It's evolving in a really nice direction because people are having a good time and want to contribute. I think we do a better job every year.”
“What's really special to me about this year is that we just have some great bands that have not been to Cortes yet.The Adonis Puentes Cuban band is going to be a killer. A not new band that's not been here before is also the Unfaithful Servants from Victoria.”
“Pierre Schreyer and Adam Dobray were here last year and they were just such a hit fiddle player and guitar player. They're just so good and played great fiddle dance music. People loved them, wanted them back, so they're coming back.”
RW: Our friends from Quadra Island, Willow, are a wonderful singing group. They were here in 2019. I love them, they're just fantastic.
Then a lot of our local favourites: Josephine Simpson grew up here; Michael Keith; Jemma Hicken, Wiley Ferguson will bring his band. Wiley, by the way, had one of his compositions accepted by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. Wiley's a great musician, great guitar player; Brenda Hanson is going to play. A new singer songwriter we've never had before. Marianne Grittani will be here. Many of the people on Cortes know Jesse Roy; Heather Wolfe and her band.
