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July 5th was the opening Saturday of the wonderful 2008 Ottawa Bluesfest, and it was a doozie!
It was also a scorcher, and for me the day started young. I was writing daily reviews for a local website and I felt obliged to sample as much of the Bluesfest as possible, which meant getting onsite as soon as the previous evening’s activities would allow. In this case I was smuggling beers past security as early as 2pm.
Try as I might I just couldn’t get to the fest in time for Dave Bidini’s book reading and I’m certain that I’m a lesser man for it. Instead my day began with the final strains of Justin Rutledge’s set as I settled into a patch of shade with some friends on the knoll between the Roots Stage and the Blacksheep Stage.
My first extended dose of music for the day came at the hands of an Australian group called Harper that sounded to me like Blues Traveler with a didgeridoo. I consider myself a more-than-passive fan of both so all my thumbs were up. The band was truly rockin’ it Aussie-style – a refreshing changeup from the fest’s consistent booking of Xavier Rudd in recent years – but the heat was just too unbearable for me to forsake my spot in the precious shade so I enjoyed Harper (a lot) from my perch on the knoll.
Eventually NQ Arbuckle started his set on the other side of me down at the Blacksheep Stage and for a few songs I had him in one ear and Harper in the other. When the aural dichotomy finally spoiled my shade tree and forced me to choose I was drawn to the wit emanating from Arbuckle. Twangy, soulful, and reminiscent of Fred Eaglesmith without copping his sound whatsoever, NQ is another example of the insightful programming endemic to the Blacksheep Stage and why it’s my goto destination at Bluesfest when I think I have nothing to go to.
My first big sacrifice of the day was forsaking the crystalline virtuosic old-school newgrass of Switzerland’s favourite hillbillies the Kruger Brothers in favour of staying put at the Blacksheep Stage for a set courtesy of Luke Doucet. I don’t regret my decision one bit; it was a killer set.
Doucet is a Bluesfest standard and one I’ve yet to tire of. Not surprisingly, his well-attended set consisted of one clever song after another, each musical vignette another mini-anthem of honest-sounding Canadiana played on his big beautiful Gretsch White Falcon guitar. This was back in his pre-Whitehorse days but he still had the family there with him. He brought out his young daughter again this year, this time for Dolly Parton’s Jolene. It was freakin’ gorgeous and the crowd ate it up like sweet manna from Heaven.
I stopped in for a spell at the River Stage and watched Adrian Belew let his Parker fly with what can be best described as trigonometry-rock. He and his two bandmates played a bunch of hexagons and rhombus and it was utterly brilliant. Like, staggering. I can’t believe I managed to tear myself away from it for Lucinda Williams.
But I did. Oh, the sacrifices!
I got turned on to this woman years and years ago. Lucinda has a singular quality about her; she sounds a bit like she looks: stunningly beautiful despite lots of hard, wisening miles. The beauty is the part that shines through the most though, like when she tore through a soul-ripping Right In Time from her excellent Car Wheels On A Gravel Road just as the blazing sun sizzled itself into the Ottawa River behind me. It was a ghastly beautiful snapshot of a near-perfect slice of music and for all the greatness I was missing on all the other stages I was pretty confident that I was in the right place.
And then it was headliner time. Are you ready for this? Zappa Plays Zappa duking it out against Steely Dan. I know, most of you are slam-dunking Steely Dan in your minds but I’m a pretty big FZ fan and his son Dweezil is a pretty stellar musician in his own right so I raced over to catch the opening strains of ZPZ. Aaaaand it was awesome. I would’ve been ecstatic to stay there for the rest of the evening and fill my ears with Zappa brilliance but Bluesfest will be Bluesfest so I had to bow to the Festival Of Sacrifice one more time. It was tough – really tough – but after just a few fleeting (and very brilliant) minutes of ZPZ I bailed and headed to the main stage.
I grabbed a beer and found a pocket of friends and together we revelled in the slick brilliance that is Steely Dan. Time and again they played cleverly-sculpted jazz-rock progressions that made the crowd emit a collective, “Oh yeah, that tune!” once the ever-catchy chorus finally came around. It’s amazing just how many times Steely Dan has cracked the top ten. By the time the encore rolled around they had managed to thoroughly entertain while steadfastly avoiding their biggest hits. And while I can’t begrudge my choice of headliners to cap such a great day of music I truly can’t believe that I got shut out of Reelin’ In The Years once again. Imagine! Okay, Steely Dan played lots of great songs and they were fantastic and yadda yadda yadda but the very idea that they would be playing on a gorgeous evening at an outdoor venue under a canopy of stars and not play what is unquestionably, unarguably, unequivocally their best and greatest song? For shame. Well, not “for shame” but…well, c’mon now.
It almost makes me wish I had stayed at the Zappa Plays Zappa set but apparently they didn’t play Reelin’ In The Years either.
Still, it was a pretty great day. Ultimately all that was left was to try and keep my weaving to a minimum as I retrieved my two-wheeled stallion from the bicycle valet. Oh, and then race home along the canal at breakneck speeds so I could get a jump on staying up until 4am writing my review whilst clearing out my bar fridge.
Amazing to think that it was a volunteer position.
Todd Man Out 