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The Ottawa Bluesfest is big. It books big-time acts, the geographical footprint that holds all their stages, stands, and customers is big, the crowds are big…the thing is big. it’s so big that the side stages book bigger acts than a lot of festival’s main stages do. For example, during the 2009 season Alan Parsons, The Yardbirds, Buckwheat Zydeco, Steve Earle, Matisyahu, Drive-By Truckers, and David Lindley all played on the secondary River Stage. There are a lot of festivals out there who would be thrilled to have that sort of lineup booked on their main stage.
The thing is big, I tells ya.
At the top of this great pyramid of bigness is a guy named Mark Monahan, the founder, executive director and Grand Poobah of the whole shebang. Now, if it was me in charge I would be a one-man dynamo of panic and high blood pressure. During the two weeks of the festival itself I would would have someone following me around with a defibrillator the entire time. Not Mark Monahan. A cooler cucumber you will not see. The man moves slow, he talks quietly, and he has a heart-rate of about 17bpm even (especially?) when he stands in the eye of the storm. I asked him one day how he could be so relaxed when such a huge operation rested on his shoulders and he just smiled and said there was no other way to do it. Which, of course, is one of the secrets to his success.
And with such a big festival resting at my fingertips every summer it gets easy to walk right by bands and events that would stop me dead in my tracks at lesser festivals, and such was the case when I arrived onsite on July 14th, 2009 and strolled right by Our Lady Peace as they rocked the main stage. Not that I’m any big OLP fan or anything but I’ve taught guitar long enough to be familiar with a bit of their material and to my ears they were putting on a good show as I sauntered along. Regardless, I let the Doppler effect do its work as I bee-lined towards the good old not-ready-for-main-stage Hard Rock Stage to see Toots and the Maytals, who were great. There was a massive crowd over there for their set and the band kept thousands of butts bouncing on the downbeats they were steadfastly avoiding, as is the reggae creed. Sure, the syncopated guitar makes everyone move but it’s that magical roving reggae bass and sparse drumming that forces us to all imagine the implied “one” together. Funny how reggae drummers supply the “one” by beating the hell out of the “four”, but they do and somehow everyone gets it. Even the rhythmically challenged like yours truly.
In a feeble attempt to downsize things I slid over to the Black Sheep Stage and somehow the grooves were even groovier over there. The crowd was smaller than it should have been due to the obvious popularity of Toots et al over at Hard Rock, but the Spam Allstars didn’t seem to care; they were kicking it pretty hard. The band had a DJ in place of a drummer and though after Kid Koala’s amazing set a couple of days before I swore it would be a long time before I could even look at another DJ, I gotta say the guy did an admirable job. With killer horns, extra percussion, and some super-slinky guitar layered on top the band kept me and the crowd hopping until close.
Next up was a big sleep in preparation for the following night, which would prove to be the biggest crowd this big festival had seen before or since.
Todd Man Out 