For the second night of City Folk’s second weekend, mother nature decided it was not summer anymore.
It was a chilly 11 degrees at Lansdowne Park on the night of Friday, Sept. 16. The crowd had to pull out their toques early this year to attend the show, but it was well worth it.
Tré Burt was the first act on stage. He released his sophomore album, You, Yeah, You, less than a month ago on Aug. 27.
Burt is preparing to tour later this year with Shovels & Rope, who later played City Folk on Saturday, Sept. 17.
The second act of the night, Whitehorse, was a two-person band composed of husband-and-wife duo Luke Doucet and Melissa McClelland.
Separately, both are successful artists, but in recent years they’ve come together to tour. It’s created some awkward moments when it comes to songwriting inspiration—like performing a song Doucet wrote about an ex-girlfriend.
Both Doucet and McClelland are Canadian and were clearly happy to be back in the country. The band explained they’d been doing a show in Nashville less than 24 hours earlier. On their way back to Ottawa, their guitars were lost in transit and their flight was delayed, so the band didn’t even get a soundcheck before performing.
None of that was too much for the experienced duo, as they still managed to put on a great show.
Finally, returning to City Folk where he performed in 2019, was Orville Peck, tassels and all.
Peck wears a fringed mask that covers everything but his eyes, and hides his identity from the public. He’s said in interviews the mask allows him to be more vulnerable on stage.
To complement the fringed mask, Peck and his band were all dressed to the nines in sparkly and sequined country outfits.
He performed some of his most popular songs and plenty off of Bronco, his 2022 album. “Daytona Sand,” “C’mon Baby, Cry,” and Pony‘s(2019) lead single, “Dead of the Night,” were crowd favourites.
For the most part, the faithful crowd stayed until the end of Peck’s set, despite the cold. Afterwards, they packed up their blankets and headed home from the penultimate night of City Folk 2022.
