By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
YACHATS – Susan Emerson came from Corvallis. Jennie Smith and her daughter, Katherine, from Madras. Mike Kin drove up from Brookings.
And on their years-long tour of north and south America, Dan and Geraldine Wood of Glasgow, Scotland stumbled upon Yachats and the 2022 Celtic Music Festival, staying long enough to fall in love with the town and its people.
After a forced, two-year absence because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Celtic festival returned for its 20th year with top-level performers, sold-out shows and appreciative audiences.
“We’ve been to Scotland for the music festivals there,” said Mike Kin, who staked out front-row seats with his wife, Beverly, for Saturday’s performances. “This is just as good. It’s A+.”
The festival spilled out over town all weekend, with impromptu jams at the Underground Pub and fiddlers holding court at the Drift Inn restaurant.
Two days of near-perfect weather over the three-day Veterans Day holiday put a cap on outdoor activities, including bagpiper Ken Carr’s bagpipe performance witnessed by hundreds at sunset Friday and Saturday.
The festival is organized by Polly Plumb Productions, the Yachats nonprofit that stages art and music events over much of the year. The festival’s music director is Stephen Farish of Waldport, who is widely credited for bringing in top Celtic performers from Ireland, Scotland, eastern Canada and the best the U.S. has to offer.
Two of those are the husband-wife duo of Aryeh Frankfurter and Lisa Lynne, who have made a living touring the world, and recently moved from San Francisco to a “music farm” near Monroe.
“The quality of the musicians in this festival is excellent,” said Frankfurter. “These are the royalty of our genre.”
The Irish band Altan was the headliner Friday and Saturday nights, performing soulful ballads to capacity crowds of 250 in the Yachats Commons’ multipurpose room. They had been scheduled for the festival last year, but had to cancel when travel restrictions kept them in Europe and a surge in Covid-19 cases prompted festival organizers to suspend the event for the second year in a row.
If the music enthralled visitors, it was the return to joyful, public events that helped motivate the army of more than 50 local volunteers organized by Polly Plumb board member Jo Crooks.
Rotations of volunteers, including Polly Plumb board president and Drift Inn owner Linda Hetzler, prepared and served food and drinks in the Common’s kitchen. Others took tickets, helped vendors, manned light and sound systems, and took care of performers waiting for their turn on stage.
Lynn Schellhase volunteered Saturday at the Yachats Community Presbyterian Church, greeting people at the door.
“People are excited the festival is back,” she said. “Everyone is happy. It’s about time. Finally.”
Performers happy
Performers were excited too.
“We love being back,” Frankfurter told an appreciative audience Saturday afternoon at the church. “It’s hard to play just for yourself.”
Lynne and Frankfurter said an interview later that they’ve performed in big and small venues all over North America and Europe, including places “where they just want to sell beer or party.”
“This is the perfect size and the audiences appreciate Celtic music,” Lynne said. “We love this festival.”
Eric McDonald, leader of the Kalos trio, echoed that sentiment to a Commons audience Saturday as well. “It’s been a long time coming,” he said. “This has been great.”
The Celtic appeal
While the festival operates on the backs of local volunteers, it is the draw of Celtic music – not enamored by all – that brings a steady audience of advocates willing to spend hundreds on tickets, motels and food.
Jennie and Katherine Smith attended to see Altan, who they saw previously at the Sisters Folk Festival. But it was Talisk, a contemporary Celtic trio from Scotland, who got the audience jumping, clapping and dancing Saturday and Sunday.
Mare Peters of Bend, who has attended the festival for most of its 20 years, complimented organizers for offering free concerts all three days, allowing community members or people unable to afford the rising ticket prices a chance to hear the music.
“Yachats is one of my favorite places to stay,” Mare said. “The festival is frosting on the cake.”
The evening audiences were mostly comprised of people who closely follow Celtic music.
“Many people are connecting to their Celtic roots or heritage,” Emerson said. “Or maybe they have been to Ireland or Scotland and love the music. Whatever the answer is, it was still quite remarkable during the day and evening to be in that space with people and have a unique shared experience.
“After all the Covid isolation, the event – or gathering – was even more splendid,” she said.
World travelers
But the festival and Yachats’ pull on people wouldn’t be complete without the tale of Dan and Geraldine Wood, the Scottish couple who ditched their jobs last spring to travel the world, and spent four days parked below city hall in their distinctive Mercedes Unimog.
Dan Wood was successfully treated for prostate cancer last year. “It gave us a bit of a wakeup call,” he said. “Let’s do this while we still have our health and the opportunity.”
They shipped their behemoth RV to New York and started heading west in April. They’ve been to Washington, D.C., Chicago, through the Midwest, attended the Calgary Stampede, drove around Vancouver Island, and spent more time than imagined at the site of a yearly festival for Unimog owners in Sheridan. Their trip is chronicled on their website.
“Sometimes we get in a lot of miles,” Geraldine Wood laughed. “Sometimes it takes us a week to go 40.”
They parked Wednesday night in the lot behind Yachats city hall, not knowing what the community had in store for them over the weekend. They attended the Celtic festival both nights, partied at the Underground Pub and were taken back stage to meet fellow Scots from Talisk.
“It’s been wonderful,” Geraldine Wood said. “People have been so friendly and welcoming.”
On Monday, they head south along the coast, meeting up with their three daughters for Christmas in San Francisco and then continuing south to Baja, Mexico for part of the winter and then through Central America and the west coast of South America.
Meanwhile, Farish — exhausted but happy Sunday night — said plans are already in the works for next year.
“You have to hire bands a year or a year and a half out,” he said. “So we’re already working on that.”
