BIRDS HILL PARK -- They snuck into NATO, wormed their way into the EU and now those devious little Poles are out to conquer the world.

Six young men and women from the sneaky Slavic nation used screams, chants, strings, a dulcimer and the ever-so-trendy hurdy-gurdy to blow away an unsuspecting audience yesterday at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, at the beginning of the Saturday night Mainstage concert.

The Warsaw Village Band, which plays traditional Polish folk music at the speed and volume of a NASCAR race, energized a sun-battered crowd toward the end of the first truly sweltering day of the long-delayed summer.

As of 5 p.m., 13,200 people paid to enter the Birds Hill Park site, which puts the festival on pace to set another attendance record. If another 9,000 people show up today, the 31st Folk Fest will surpass last year's four-day total of 40,899.

At this point, the Winnipeg Folk Festival draws a crowd on reputation alone. Its audience expects the music to be amazing as a matter of blind faith.

That's how a crowd equal in size to the city of Portage la Prairie showed up to hear rugged sounds from the Polish heartland, South African singer-guitarist Vusi Mahlasela, U.S. gospel powerhouse Linda Tillery & The Cultural Heritage Choir, multi-instrumentalist David Lindley and bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs at the most diverse of this year's four evening Mainstage concerts.

Warsaw Village kicked things off in dramatic fashion, with fiddles and cello screeching against thundering hard-drums to make a sound worthy of an epic, medieval battle.

The Poles were followed by the jolly Mahlasela, the crowd-pleasing African-American strains of Tillery's crew and, after press time, Lindley and the 80-year-old banjo player Scruggs.

Also up on the Mainstage for between-set performances were Welsh songwriter Martyn Joseph, Scottish folkie Dick Gaughan and the hosts for the evening, Canadian comedy troupe The Arrogant Worms.

While this was going on, the festival's new alternative evening stage, The Firefly Palace, was packed during another performance by Australian didgeridoo specialist Xavier Rudd.

There were many highlights from earlier in the day, when the 28 C heat took its toll, as lines for the site's three water taps stretched 50 people long. The daytime crowd was more lethargic than usual, as the hordes of sweaty interpretive dancers who usually crowd the sides of the daytime stages were mostly absent.

The Shady Grove stage saw a meeting of one of the festival's elder statesmen, British troubadour Martin Carthy, and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, grandson of singer Pete Seeger. Carthy performed tunes of the British Isles, while Rodriguez-Seeger and his string band, The Mammals, did some rousing bluegrass and American murder ballads.

At the Bur Oak stage, Vancouver's Spirit of the West teamed up with Dutch oddballs The Nits to actually take a workshop concept to heart, learning each other's songs on the spot and playing as one big jam band for 90 minutes.

Late on Friday night, the evening Mainstage concert concluded with dependable hometown heroes The Duhks, a 'tweener set by former Winnipeg's Joel Kroeker and a disappointing closer by The Nits. The word out of the festival campground was mellow, as "The Battle of Pope's Hill" -- an attempt by partiers to retake an area closed off by Manitoba Conservation -- didn't materialize. Conservation officers used vehicles and bright lights to maintain a presence on the hill.

There were, however, reports of three female festival-goers taken to hospital for treatment of possible ingestion for date-rape drugs.

The 31st Winnipeg Folk Festival concludes today with concerts on seven stages, beginning at 11 a.m. Tonight's Mainstage concert features Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer, Scotland's Shooglenifty, Italy's Fiamma Fumana and Puerto Rico's Plena Libre, who kick things off at 6 p.m.