Daniel Lanois knows his way around a recording studio like few other people on this planet, having produced career-changing records for Bob Dylan, U2, Emmylou Harris and others. Outdoors, Lanois’s production record is not nearly so deep, which makes the success of his first Greenbelt Harvest Picnic all the more remarkable.
The one-day event took place on a perfect day in a perfect spot: a wide open green space surrounded by trees near Christie Lake, in a conservation area a few minutes’ drive from Lanois’s hometown of Hamilton. Lanois and his co-producer Jean-Paul Gauthier wanted the festival to celebrate the natural beauty of Steeltown’s rural backyard, to promote local food from small farm producers and to show off the talents of some of Lanois’s friends, including Emmylou Harris, Ray LaMontagne, Sarah Harmer and Gord Downie.
The music ran from noon till night, as about 5,000 people picnicked, sampled organic produce, relaxed on the grass and twined flowers through their hair. At dusk, small Asian paper lanterns rose from behind the crowd high into the sky and drifted west, glowing orange over their own small, elevating fires.
Lanois’s smarts as a golden-eared studio guy were evident the second you walked on the field. This festival had the best amplified sound I’ve ever heard at an outdoor event – a clean, natural, rich sound from top to bottom. It was equally good from close-up and far away, no matter who was playing.
Lanois took the stage at around 7 p.m., with a reddish light creeping into the sky. Something about the scene, perhaps, put him into a contemplative mood, to judge from the long, ruminative guitar jam he slipped into during his very first number, and again during the bluesy lovesong, Fire. The fine-grained, high-distortion guitar sound of his recent Le Noise sessions with Neil Young was much in evidence. A turn at pedal steel brought an even more introspective feeling to his performance with bassist Jim Wilson and drummer Steve Nistor.
It was somewhat jarring, in this context, to see a couple of burlesque dancers, dressed as for the Rio carnival in string bikinis and massive coloured feathers, writhing through part of this set. They also appeared during the brief jams Lanois played between sets under a small canopy in mid-field.
The one-day event took place on a perfect day in a perfect spot: a wide open green space surrounded by trees near Christie Lake, in a conservation area a few minutes’ drive from Lanois’s hometown of Hamilton. Lanois and his co-producer Jean-Paul Gauthier wanted the festival to celebrate the natural beauty of Steeltown’s rural backyard, to promote local food from small farm producers and to show off the talents of some of Lanois’s friends, including Emmylou Harris, Ray LaMontagne, Sarah Harmer and Gord Downie.
The music ran from noon till night, as about 5,000 people picnicked, sampled organic produce, relaxed on the grass and twined flowers through their hair. At dusk, small Asian paper lanterns rose from behind the crowd high into the sky and drifted west, glowing orange over their own small, elevating fires.
Lanois’s smarts as a golden-eared studio guy were evident the second you walked on the field. This festival had the best amplified sound I’ve ever heard at an outdoor event – a clean, natural, rich sound from top to bottom. It was equally good from close-up and far away, no matter who was playing.
Lanois took the stage at around 7 p.m., with a reddish light creeping into the sky. Something about the scene, perhaps, put him into a contemplative mood, to judge from the long, ruminative guitar jam he slipped into during his very first number, and again during the bluesy lovesong, Fire. The fine-grained, high-distortion guitar sound of his recent Le Noise sessions with Neil Young was much in evidence. A turn at pedal steel brought an even more introspective feeling to his performance with bassist Jim Wilson and drummer Steve Nistor.
It was somewhat jarring, in this context, to see a couple of burlesque dancers, dressed as for the Rio carnival in string bikinis and massive coloured feathers, writhing through part of this set. They also appeared during the brief jams Lanois played between sets under a small canopy in mid-field.