Photos by Scott Landry
KINGFIELD – With the weather in a rare mood to cooperate, a good crowd turned out for the seventh annual Kingfield POPS held at the Kennedy Farm Saturday evening. Headlining this year’s event, the 80-member Casco Bay Concert Band performed into the night before an appreciative audience.
The full evening of musical talent started off with the Western Mountain Trash Can Band, a local, community steel drum band that was formed in the early ’90s and has played the POPS for all seven years.
Port City Jazz (a septet) played the standards in the Chicago/Kansas City style like no other group north of Boston.
Native Oak has been playing together since 1995 and specializes in songs that include rock, jazz, bluegrass, country, folk, acappella and instrumentals, as well as some original works. From the Farmington area, Native Oak members include, from left to right: Bill Colwell, lead singer and mandolin; Randy Gauvin, guitar and harmony; and Paul Soucie, bass guitar and harmony.
Back again this year by popular demand, The Smith Brothers of Industry, entertained the crowd with their fiddle and guitar bluegrass perfection.
Soloist Sally Swallow, Farmington native, brought her singing talent back home to perform for the POPS audience. A soprano, Swallow has performed in theatre and operetta in NYC and recently returned from a road tour across the U.S.
For the grand finale, a resounding rendition of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture using actual canon fire provided by the Maine Army National Guard brought a thrilling end to this year’s Kingfield POPS.
