Book review

by Tanya Laing Gahr

Festival Man by Geoff Berner

It’s often difficult to separate the art from the artist. With Geoff Berner’s most recent book Festival Man, that task is even more challenging.

Festival Man is an unflinching first-person account of a down ‘n’ dirty, gritty, hard-knock-life Canadian folk music manager—Campbell Ouinette—in the biggest gamble of his (what can loosely be defined as) career. Campbell has spent all, mortgaged all, and thrown in all of his chips for one final shot at the big time: a chance to connect some promising musicians in his care—minus their promised and almost-famous lead singer who has just landed a better gig—with one of the top promoters in the game. He sneaks and skulks, he perjures and prevaricates, he acts wrongly just to get the right people to listen to the music makers he has nurtured.

Campbell as a character is damaged. He lacks shame and compunction—unnecessary baggage for a travelling man always looking for the next opportunity—and yet there is purity to him. He loves, loves, good music. Full stop. Music is his drug (though make no mistake, he’s not adverse to other forms of intoxication) and the whole purpose of his life is to deliver that singular moment of unique, honest music to an appreciative audience. That moment of connection is his heroin, and he will wage his soul to achieve it.

All of which makes Campbell both the best and worst of the music scene.

And it’s a scene that Berner knows quite well. The backdrop of Festival Man is the Calgary Folk Music Festival, an annual event that features some of the most prominent (and sometimes, the most obscure) Canadian and international folk musicians in the world.

Berner has graced the stage himself multiple times and, by his account, disgraced himself a few times as well. (Fun fact: Berner met his partner of 12 years in the beer garden at Calgary Folk Fest.) And with tongue placed firmly in cheek, he both pays homage to and skewers the best and worst of the festival scene. He has employed a few pseudonyms to keep the lawyers at bay (although Sarah McLaughlin and Blue Rodeo do not escape unscathed) and in that manner, gently mocks and celebrates his festival comrades-in-arms in the most ribald, rude, hilarious and loving manner possible. And because he is a good man at heart, Berner offers himself as the first victim—and it is delightful.

Festival Man is funny, no doubt. It is fun, as well. Astute readers who follow the Canadian folk music scene will recognize some of its more memorable characters within the pages. But it is, like Berner’s music, also cutting and unexpectedly poignant.

Through Campbell’s sneering, unsentimental eye, we see some of the dearness, the sweetness, of the barroom music scene and, in contrast, the Albertan rancher’s paradise. We see a man who can barely care for himself do his best to hold those around him together. We see the grime and ugliness of the music industry and its disregard for artistry and that moment of culmination when the whole stinking mess comes together in one orchestral movement. And it is for this moment that we cheer on the almost wholly unlikeable and totally loveable Campbell Ouinette.

Berner played at Cranbrook’s Lotus Books on Feb. 8.

Festival Man by Geoff Berner, 2013 Published by Dundurn Press.

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