After two event-filled evenings, the annual arts and music festival will end Saturday with a full day of activities for the entire family
Music on the MainStage and the Woodstock Legion and comedy at the Cross Creek Brewery Tap Room highlighted the Dooryard Arts Festival entertainment options on Thursday night, July 18, in Woodstock.
The festival followed Friday night with rising and established musical stars hitting the MainStage, the Legion and the McCain Community Theatre at Woodstock High School.
Saturday will offer a full day of entertainment, art, and activities for the entire family in downtown Woodstock and at various sites around town.
Mi’kmaq rapper and CBC host White Castle and his band headlined Thursday’s MainStage show under the big tent on the Woodstock waterfront. Goat Mountain and Avery Dakin also performed at MainStage’s opening night showcase.
Just up the street at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 11, the Joclyn Reinhart Band performed. At the same time, across the Meduxnekeag River, six New Brunswick comedians delivered laughs at the Cross Creek Brewery Tap Room.
Katelin Dean, a familiar face to Dooryard regulars, hosted Thursday’s night of comedy. She joined fellow comedians Cive Lucas, Liam Patrick McNamara, Northern Carleton’s Michael Miskimen, Nathan Dimitroff and Michelle Lynn Petite to entertain a large and appreciative crowd at the Main Street bar.
Like Dean and Miskimen, Petite shared her ties to Carleton County communities. As the evening’s headliner, Petite explained she spent her formative years growing up in Woodstock.
Miskimen, a native and resident of the Bath area of northern Carleton, tied his Monquarter heritage into his routine.
Dean, a former NBCC student and Bugle-Observer journalist, spent several years covering the Woodstock festival as a journalist and as one of the event’s organizers and volunteers.
Festival chair Gloria Yachyshen said the festival, which culminates on Saturday night, is off to a good start.
She said an appreciative audience attended Dooryard’s kick-off event on Wednesday, July 17, at the Best Western Woodstock. The special event featured Marcel Lebrun, creator of the “12 Neighbours” project, in conversation with James Mullinger, award-winning writer, comedian, and journalist.
The Dooryard Arts Festival continued on Friday at three locations. The MainStage featured four musical acts: Big South, local rising stars such as the Martin Boys, singer-songwriter Kylia Fox, and a past Dooryard favourite, Roxy & the Underground Soul Sound.
The Hello Crows, a New Brunswick Indigenous band that debuted at last year’s Dooryard Arts Festival, opened for Juno-nominated Mi’kmaq musician Morgan Tomey at the McCain Community Theatre at Woodstock High School.
Following a set of great music and story-telling from Hello Crows, Tomey, accompanied by Keith Mullins and Ryan Roberts, thrilled the audience with their blend of Cape Breton Celtic and Mi’kmaq traditional sound.
Smoke Spell closed out Friday’s entertainment with an aftershow at the Woodstock Legion.
The Dooryard Arts Festival offers a full day of entertainment options at several locations on Saturdays. The day begins at 9:30 a.m. with free family entertainment and activities on King Street, adjacent to the MainStage, with the Halifax Circus, Street Magic, chalk art and kid art wars.
Starting at 10 a.m., performers Mr. Mark, the Dooryard Drifters and Maritime blues favourite Garrett Mason offer free concerts at the MainStage.
At 2 p.m., Nicole Romperaud and Loel LeBlanc perform at Connell House on Saturday afternoon.
Cross Creek Brewery hosts Drag Trivia with Amour Love and Julia Jeffries at 3 p.m.
Saturday evening’s MainStage performances featured Kelly McMichael, Jason Haywood and the Goldfish, Jessica Rhaye and the Ramshackle Parade, and Earthbound.
Area bands Monteith and Stinking Rich close the festival at the Woodstock Legion, starting at 11 p.m.
