NATIONAL Folk Festival staff and supporters were out in force on Monday to enjoy an early afternoon pub launch in Braddon.

President David Gilks took to the mike to talk up what he predicted would be one of the best ever.

The five-day celebration of folk life, he said, would be headlined by The Waifs and English singer-songwriter Billy Bragg, but there was much more to it than that and the headliners would be “only a small part of the festival experience”.

Gilks went on to announce that the festival’s top lifetime achievement award for 2023 would go to folk fiddler Bob McInnes from the Southern Highlands of NSW, who had been in the ’70s one of only two Scottish fiddlers in Australia.

Canberra singer-songwriter Fred Smith stepped up, singing affectionately, “it’s just folk music, and it’s better than it sounds”.

Smith described the festival as a “cauldron” before he launched into another number, his paean to multiculturalism, singing, “there’s more to being Australian than your esky and your thongs.”

2023 National Folk Festival, Exhibition Park, April 6-10.