Oliver "Tuku" Mtukudzi closes 2006 American Folk Festival in style
Kristen Andresen, Bangor Daily
August 27, 2006

BANGOR -- It was bound to happen sometime.
After five consecutive festival years without a drop of rain, a cold shower started to fall as Sunday?s final acts took the stage for the finale of the 2006 American Folk Festival on the Bangor Waterfront. But it didn?t dampen the festivities for a hundred or so umbrella-toting, raincoat-wearing fans at the Railroad Stage who were determined to stay through to the end.

Diane Hills, 42, and Marvin Austin, 45, both of Hermon, had been there all weekend, and they weren?t about to let a little rain send them home. Instead, they hunkered down in their lawn chairs and settled in to hear Oliver "Tuku" Mtukudzi?s Zimbabwean Tuku music.

"The different kinds of music, we like that," said Hills, who?s a regular at WERU?s Full Circle Summer Fair but a first-timer at the Bangor festival. When asked if she?d return, she didn?t skip a beat: "Absolutely."

Despite cooler-than-usual weather, the second American Folk Festival had hotter-than-ever attendance. Heather McCarthy, the festival's executive director, said the weekend numbers were "easily" 10 percent higher than last year's three-night record of 145,000, putting total attendance in the neighborhood of 160,000. There were no police complaints and festival organizers said the event went smoothly.

"This year, we've learned the people who are coming to this event are participants, they?re stakeholders," McCarthy said Sunday. "They?re not just passing through. They?re committed to this event."