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After forsaking the penultimate day of the 2008 Ottawa Bluesfest in favour of a Phil Lesh/Levon Helm concert in Rochester I was back onsite nice and early for the final Sunday, which would prove to be a busy day* rife with scheduling snafus and perfect timing. To wit: I made it to LeBreton Flats just in time to catch Canned Heat only to find they had changed timeslots and weren’t playing yet so I went over to the Blacksheep Stage where Anders Osborne was late getting on, which meant I could catch his entire set.
This had been my first time seeing Anders and I had no idea what to expect and I was surprised to discover how well Osborne’s set eased me in from my heady adventures in Rochester the night before. Groovy and jammy, spacey and interesting, Anders warmed us up with a long instrumental that pulled wonderful solos out of both him and his sax player. When he began to sing he seemed to channel Van Morrison’s phrasing with a Dylan-esque lyrical sensibility, and everything underlain with consistent, wonderfully understated guitar playing. I thought his set was terrific, so much so that I put off catching the beginning of Redd Volkaert’s performance.
I had first stumbled upon Redd Volkaert in a grungy little barbecue joint in Texas where his playing had sent me through the roof. He’s a Canadian who made his career in the south playing guitar for Merle Haggard and others and man, can he play! He’s got the chickin’ pickin’ twang thing down, and he’s exceptionally humble about his skills too. I was thrilled when I saw that he was scheduled for two sets at the Bluesfest and after missing Saturday’s show I was hankering to catch as much as I could of his second performance. I ambled over about twenty minutes after his scheduled start time of 7pm but once again the Bluesfest schedule had bent itself out of shape. I arrived for what turned out to be his last tune, a killer cover of Jessica by The Allman Brothers. He must have started early but I was happy to at least hear the one song that I heard.
I took a sojourn over to the main stage for a bite to eat and a sit-down and I settled in just in time to hear Canned Heat play Goin’ Up Country. Well, that was lucky. I finished up my fish ‘n chips while they kicked into another jam then I made my way back to the River Stage to catch Robert Randolph. Now here’s a man that has a good time when he plays! Randolph was manic from the get-go, wrenching blazing riffs out of his pedal steel guitar with apparent ease and obvious glee. The pedal steel is a relative anomaly in rock music, probably because the contraption requires a depth of concentration and finesse in order to be played even remotely well. Luckily nobody told any of this to Mr. Robert Randolph. Standing, screaming and flailing away at his musical slide-rule, Randolph’s persistently upbeat presence eventually got the whole field up on their feet – no mean feat given the historic ennui of Bluesfest crowds – and he kept the party blaring for a solid hour, paying tributes along the way to both Jimi Hendrix and Bo Diddley. In all it was just a fantastic pile of music from a relentlessly energetic performer that I’ll go see any/every time.
Finally it was time for the final set of Bluesfest for 2008, and I had no idea where to go. Faced with a plentitude of head-scratching options I forsook my newly-adopted dedication to committing to full sets and opted instead to circle the stages for a series of in-and-out missions.
While waiting for Donna Summers’ late start I watched as one of the founding members of the Bluesfest organization was introduced on the main stage. He was stepping down from his position and was being honoured with an onstage presentation where he was granted a lifetime all-access pass to Bluesfest. All I can say is: wow.
Fifteen minutes behind schedule The Queen of Disco appeared onstage standing atop a wide staircase while the music of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony blared from the speakers. As the music morphed into Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra three male dancers dressed in marching band uniforms heralded the queen onto the stage with some choreographed silliness involving a trio of medieval regal horns. Looking a bit out of shape and rather bored, Summer gave us her standard Vegas show and the crowd ate it up like it was Studio 54 bathroom candy. For a few years the Bluesfest leaned on retro disco acts to close out the festival and you can say what you like about about it, but people loved it and they came out in droves. I stuck around for the first three songs – all of which I recognized from my young collection of disco cassettes (thank you Columbia House) – before continuing my rounds.
At the Blacksheep Stage Bachir Attar failed to hold my interest. Basically a percussion group from Morocco, if they had no competition I would’ve been happy to stick around for their set, but this was not that time. Donna Summers’ late start had thrown a wrench into my timetable so I left in short order.
Over on the Roots Stage Tony D was doin’ it up right to close out the Bluesfest, as was his habit. With uber-talented harmonica whiz Steve Marriner on bass and the Texas Horns honking behind him Tony was proving that he is what he is – a total pro bluesman with an enormous amount of talent. I stood there hoping that I would be lucky enough to see Redd or Randolph sit in but I didn’t. And as much as I wanted to stick around just in case they did, by this time the Roots Stage beer tent only had Coors Light left so I couldn’t. I did stick around for about twenty minutes of what was very likely the best music happening at the fest at that moment.
Arriving at the River Stage I grabbed a beer just as Don McLean was in the middle of singing his other hit, Vincent. It’s a classic, and it was boring as hell as he strummed at about 46bpm in front of his equally bored band who silently and sullenly looked on, as I suppose they do every night of their well-paid lives. And then he went right into American Pie. Okay, forget the overplay for a moment and see if you can admit that it’s actually a damn fine song. Personally it was a thrill for me to hear the tune played live by the man himself, as I feel a bit of kinship with American Pie. After teaching guitar for several decades I’ve probably made almost as much money off of that song as he did.
Of course the crowd had a great old time singing along with every word and of course McLean milked it as much as he could, which was lots. After Don sang his last “die” I joined the massive crowd streaming away from the River Stage and found myself caught in a flow of traffic that represented the biggest crowd I saw at the fest that year as the echoes of Donna Summer’s set Doppler-ed over us from the mainstage.
After leaving the venue I circled back on a lark and watched Donna’s encore (Works Hard For Her Money and a Bad Girls/Hot Stuff medley) from outside the venue where the fence-standers stand. Turns out those freeloaders are getting a pretty good view of the stage from out there. I actually quite enjoyed the end of her performance as nostalgia pulled me right back to my glue-eating days back in Grade 4.
And there you go: another triumphant Bluesfest for all involved. Especially me, who managed to catch the following thirty-seven acts despite skipping out on two full days of the festival:
The Tragically Hip
Corb Lund
Feist
Steely Dan
Snoop Dogg
Widespread Panic
James Taylor
Brian Wilson
Tony D
Donna Summer
TV on the Radio
Lucinda Williams
Infected Mushroom
Primus
Anders Osborne
Canned Heat
Dave Bidini Band
Orchestra Baobab
Justin Rutledge
NQ Arbuckle
Luke Doucet
Chuck Prophet
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80
Red Volkaert with Cindy Cashdollar
Bachir Attar
Harper
Johnny Winter
Acorn
Robert Randolph
Allen Toussaint
Kruger Brothers
Adrian Belew
Zappa Plays Zappa
That 1 Guy
Shelby Lynne
Ray Davies
Don McLean
*Though not as busy as my Bluesfest Sundays would come to be. Starting one year hence I would be the inaugural instructor of the festival’s Be In The Band music education program and one of my roles would involve herding young musicians on and off the Black Sheep Stage all afternoon on the final day of the festival. It was a fun gig, and though it generally killed my last night of music revelling I considered it a very worthwhile sacrifice.
Todd Man Out 