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By Robert LaFrance

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As promised, the August 23 Larlee Creek Hullabaloo at the Baird Campground delivered the goods with a great combination of music by local amateur performers and the seasoned professionals like headliner Matt Andersen who had gone from his Bairdsville and SVHS roots to be one of eastern Canada's top performers.

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"We're looking forward to some fantastic festivals here in the coming years," said MC Steve Braun as he was introducing some of the ‘tweeners', local entertainers like the group of Brittany McPhail, Cindy Mackie, and Lindsay Everett who impressed the audience with their guitar work and harmonies, or fiddler Sarah Farquhar and fiddler/stepdancer Bethany Williams, accompanied by Kim Jensen, eleven year old Mallory Parsons, Kyle Davenport and the very accomplished Ashley Bernard's singing and guitar work.

The signs around the area went some way to describe what was going on at the main stage. "I Hullabaloo, do you?" "Dance Like no one's watching", "Sit long, laugh much, Hullabaloo".

One of the veteran acts that entertained the audience who was enjoying the sunny warm weather was the McDougall sisters who hailed originally from Centreville. Andrea and Stephanie joined their sister Lisa who is one of the better known names in the Canadian music industry. MC Braun called her ‘an icon'.

"She has been on many many different albums over the years," he said in his introduction, "singing backup and accompanying some of the most famous people in the music industry. She toured with Rita McNeil for years and was on all her television specials. Lisa sang with Roger Whittaker, one of the most famous international stars. Molly Johnson, Dutch Mason - just a few she's performed with." And sure enough, with their blend of rock, blues and country, the three sisters were a polished and entertaining group.

Heidi Baird, whose dream it was to host the event, herself received a warm round of applause from the audience. "She had the guts to take a step that none of us had taken before," Steve Braun told the audience, "to bring a big festival of this calibre to this part of the world and we need to thank her for that. Along with Heidi, given a lot of late nights and dedication to bring this music here, were Tom Allen, Stephanie McDougall, Scott O'Brien, and Alanda Hollins. That's your executive committee. Come to the palms of your feet and give them a roar!" Also putting in a huge amount of work in organizing and helping stage manage the Hullabaloo were Ann Walker, Janet Priddle, Mary Turnbull, Roxanne Moran, Jeff Watters-Gray, Steve Braun and Jason Green.

In the evening the ‘big names' took the stage as acts like Matt Andersen, the Hupman Brothers, Jens Jeppesen from New Denmark performing his ‘Newgrass' music, Chris Colepaugh, Andrew Hunter and Ross Neilson. It was a fabulous musical event that saw the weatherman cooperate and make it memorable. With sixty volunteers on the scene of the show that was organized to the last minute, and the whole campground set off in sections to make security easier, it was a pleasure to attend.

Heidi Baird, who still sounded tired on Wednesday, said she was ‘blown away' by the support she had gotten for the Hullabaloo. "The sponsors didn't have anything to compare it with but they just trusted us," she said. "I couldn't have been more proud of our effort for this first event," she went on. "I was astounded by the volunteers, the committee members and the sponsors. Without all of those people doing their parts it never would have gone off like that. And I feel good about the attendance we had and we couldn't have asked for a better day."