Perhaps for many people in the Greater Mankato area the Rock Bend Folk Festival needs no introduction. But every year, year after year — this it’s 32nd — the festival begs heralding for its consistency, its high bar of quality and its annual immeasurable contribution to the community.
This year 19 acts are planned, two songwriter sets, two open mics and a raffle spread over two days between the Pavilion Stage and the North Grove Stage in St. Peter’s Minnesota Square Park.
The festival is noon to 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 9, and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 10. The list of acts this year and a schedule is available at rockbend.org.
The Free Press spoke with performers Sarah Morris, Chris Bertrand, PK Mayo, and longtime Rock Bend sound engineer and festival enthusiast Johnny Foderick about the upcoming festivities.
Sarah Morris
Morris’ career thus far is as difficult to summarize as Rock Bend’s own formidable legacy. With six albums under her belt and awards from songwriting contests and festival performances around the country, it’s a wonder she is not a household name.
“I’m excited to be a part of the festival,” Morris said. “In my experience every place has its people, and I love meeting new people and singing songs and hoping that someone can find a song that matters to them.”
Morris spoke about her experiences with festivals: “They’ve always been pretty magical in terms of people in the community, people who make it a tradition for themselves, people who come to listen to music as opposed to just having music on in the background. They’re a real wonderful place for songwriters. That’s been my experience.”
Morris will perform with her full band at 2:20 p.m. Saturday on the Pavilion Stage, and she will participate in a Songwriter Set with Maygen Lacey, Noah Newmann, and Mankato’s own Ben Scruggs at 4 p.m. Saturday at Joyce’s North Grove Stage.
Chris Bertrand
Bertrand, who performed an untold number of years ago with a previous band, said he’s watched the festival for many years hoping to one day make it back onstage.
“I worked at Patrick’s in St. Peter for the longest time,” he said. “I was usually working during those busy, busy days so I wanted all the more to get over there and see it or perform myself.”
Bertrand said he is excited because this will be a very different kind of show for him.
“A lot of my shows I drive a long way, I get there, I play, and then I have to leave right away to get home,” Bertand said. “Whereas with Rock Bend it’s going to be really nice to sit and talk to people before and after, and enjoy other people’s music.”
“My usual set of music is three to four hours. So this set is going to be more refined. I’m going to take the time to figure out what I should say between songs and give the best representation of my music in 45 minutes.”
Bertrand is closing out Joyce’s North Grove Stage on Sunday, starting at 4 p.m.
PK Mayo
Mayo is a northern Minnesota native who has been playing guitar, performing, recording and collecting musical influences for 30-plus years. Having toured nationally and internationally, playing theaters and festivals rural and metropolitan, he’s happy to have been invited to Rock Bend, where many of his peers played previously.
Mayo said he’s happy about the increased number of festivals and the opportunities they offer for audiences and performers.
“I think it’s a great trend. I think it’s a very healthy thing, for original music particularly. I like the opportunity to play the music that I’m writing.
“I did an album called ‘Threads,’” Mayo said, “because there were all these different influences on me all the way through — whether it was rock, or country, or jazz, or blues, or R&B, or it was Motown or Stax records — all these different things were exposed to me at different times. Nobody else is gonna be you — that’s the bottom line of original music. It’s not ‘You sound like this,’ it’s ‘This is how you sound.’
He likes the trend of music gatherings in rural locations.
“I think (the festivals) are doing so well because people don’t have to travel to a big city or to a larger metropolitan area to see great music,” Mayo said. “Where is it written that small towns can’t have good talent and can’t have great shows brought to them? I think that’s what a lot of these festivals are doing. Giving people the opportunity to see great music and giving artists with original music more opportunity to get out and play.”
Mayo will be performing on the Pavilion Stage with his band 1:15 p.m. Sunday, and also participate in the songwriter set 3 p.m. Sunday on Joyce’s North Grove Stage, alongside Javier Trejo and Jaspar Lepek.
Johnny Foderick
While some might think documenting a sound engineer’s take is superfluous, Foderick has been running sound for Rock Bend for over 10 years and to the best of anyone’s memory there have been zero complaints about the sound from all the artists who have performed in that time — a behind-the-scenes feat, but a feat all the same.
Beyond his involvement, though, Foderick has been a longtime admirer of the festival.
“When I moved to town in 2003, this was the gold standard. This was the thing that everybody looked up to. There was a Rock Bend compilation CD that I found. I listened to it and knew this is a big deal. Then I went to check it out and realized this is a really big deal. One of my goals in life was to be some part of this. I wanted so badly to be a part of this.”
Foderick, who runs sound for other festivals, is keenly aware of Rock Bend’s nuanced advantages.
“One of the things that stuck out in my head that made it different was that there’s no difference between the audience and the staff and the performers,” Foderick said. “It seemed like we were all together. There were no barricades, there’s no fencing. It seemed like I could walk up to the most famous person and it would be normal, and I wouldn’t get punched in the face for it.”
He also has his favorite acts, again a result of having a front-row seat to so many area performances.
“Good Morning Bedlam is a band I’m always looking forward to.. I see them as always doing originals, and originals are tough because nobody knows what you’re doing — you can’t sing along, you know? They somehow skip over the part where you don’t know what they’re doing and you get it right away and it’s engaging right away. I’m always pumped to see them.”
Good Morning Bedlam performs 2:50 p.m. Sunday on the Pavilion Stage.
If you go What: Rock Bend Folk Festival When: noon- 9 p.m. Saturday, noon-5 p.m. Sunday Where: St. Peter Cost: Free