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July 10th, 2011 was a big, busy Sunday at the Ottawa Bluesfest as dozens of bands mounted nearly a half-dozen stages virtually nonstop from the early afternoon to the late evening. I kept myself away from LeBreton Flats during the sunniest hours of the day and limited myself to just four bands once I did get onsite, and still I managed to run a gamut of popular musical styles at the hands of the musically rich and famous.
First up were Beantown’s favourite Celtic punks Dropkick Murphys who were putting on a power chord clinic for a dense, sweaty crowd and whipping the sun-baked mosh pit into a frenzy. The Bostonites made no secret of their connection to their beloved Bruins, who had just defeated the Canucks to win the Stanley Cup a few weeks earlier (at Boston’s home games the Bruins often emerge from their dressing room for the pre-skate while the Dropkick Murphys’ song For Boston blares from the arena’s speakers). The Bruins logo was everywhere at the show, from the drummer’s kick drum to the band’s tour shirt, which included a dig to Alex Burrows on the back that had even the hardiest Vancouver fans chuckling*.
I’m guessing that the Dropkick Murphys don’t often share the bill with the likes of Peter Frampton and/or Huey Lewis and the News, but the band paid their respects and dedicated a song to Huey, even making the audience promise to keep the mosh pit going during the 80’s pop star’s set.
After their tattooed aggro-dance take on the traditional folk classic Black Velvet Band the singer, bless him, jumped into the mosh pit and crowd surfed while he belted out the lyrics to their closing number, Kiss Me, I’m Shitfaced.
Just moments after Dropkick Murphys abandoned their stage Peter Frampton emerged on the facing stage sporting his gold-appointed jet-black triple-humbucker Les Paul Standard. Lawn chairs were quickly abandoned as the crowd jumped to its feet, welcoming the 70’s superstar who defined a genre with his multi-multi-multi platinum semi-live album Frampton Comes Alive!
With hair much shortened and looking dramatically less androgynous than he does on his classic album cover, Frampton and his four-piece band instantly brought 10,000 of us back to the era of reverb-drenched arena rock from the first note. Early in the show he polled the audience, asking how many of us had once had a vinyl copy of Comes Alive! and almost every hand in the crowd went up. Many, like me, had both hands raised in the air and I can only assume that they, like me, had owned two copies of the album.
Frampton clearly wasn’t taking himself overly seriously…he had the crowd howling when he elongated his groundbreaking talk-box guitar solo from Do You Feel Like We Do to include an impromptu conversation with a girl selling popcorn who had wandered a bit to close to the stage. “I didn’t even get any pop-corn,” whined Frampton’s talking Les Paul as the kid holding the raised stick of popcorn bags retreated into the crowd.
By the time the aging guitar god finished his set the main stage area was packed in all directions as far as the eye could see. Frampton’s crowd shifted once again, turning to see the the throngs of people who had been waiting patiently along the rail of the opposite stage since the Dropkick Murphys ended so they would be nice and close for Huey Lewis and the News. Decked in his nearly cliché black t-shirt and jeans, with a head of hair that seems ageless and looking like he just stepped out of one of his classic videos, Huey Lewis took the stage and opened the show appropriately with Heart Of Rock & Roll. After that he just kept the hits coming.
It’s amazing how many monstrously huge songs Huey and his News released back in the day. The Power of Love, Heart and Soul, If This Is It, I Want a New Drug, I mean dude pretty much owned the ’80’s. And you know, in addition to singing and writing great songs Huey is a pretty solid harmonica player too, as he proved again and again throughout their set. And there’s no discounting just how good of a rock and roll band he has behind him in The News, who effortlessly retreated from the pop to delve into a handful of soul numbers before reaching all the way back for an a cappella doo-wop tune. These guys know where they come from and they are good at it. With each diversion Lewis queried the crowd, crying into his mic, “Are you still with me?!?” and each time he received a resounding, roaring affirmative. Yeah man, we’re still with you!
As expected, Lewis traversed his extended discography of hits and had the crowd clapping and singing along with every number. With such a deep catalog he left a number of big tunes unplayed but no matter. After closing ninety minutes of horn-driven rock & roll with an extended Sunday night blue collar anthem Workin’ For A Living we were all sated.
Astoundingly, after delivering the epitome of Yacht Rock piled on top of college pub neo-shanty English pre-post folkpunk followed by ultra-classic ’70’s FM MOR the Bluesfest still had an absolute pummelling waiting for us: A Perfect Circle.
A combination of skull-numbing double-kick drum pedals and a bass guitar tuned so low that it fluttered just barely above the lower decibel threshold of human hearing, the dark lethargic metal of A Perfect Circle took over the mainstage field for the remainder of the evening. Who could follow them? Standing in utter contrast to the upbeat pop that came before, those who stuck around for A Perfect Circle were treated to the most musically unique set of the Bluesfest that year, if not the easiest to listen to.
The band featured members of Tool, Queens of the Stone Age and Primus. They performed from behind a scrim** that stretched the length of the stage, which offered mind-bending visuals to the low-end, hyper-intricate music. Their songs played with time signatures like a well-fed cat plays with a resilient mouse. The guitar lines were staccato and piercing and the vocals were volcanic. A Perfect Circle were heavy, deep, strong, and numbing for ninety solid minutes. Nobody left the show with their hearing fully intact.
Back at the bike valet shiny happy volunteers busily traded tags for two-wheelers for a burgeoning closing-time crowd. Helmet donned and lights a-flashing, down the path I went with a souvenir ringing in my ears; expending neither gas, exhaust, nor bus fare. As I rode home along the river and beneath the muted starlight the thought crossed my mind yet again:
There’s nothing like commuting to and from such a wide-ranging world-class music festival under one’s own power.
*The back of the shirt read “Bite This Burrows”, a reference to a fight between the Canuck and Boston’s Patrice Bergeron in which Alex Burrows was accused of biting Bergeron’s finger. I’ll save you the google: Tyson and Holyfield’s Bite Fight happened fourteen years earlier, on June 28th, 1997 in Las Vegas (of course).
**A scrim is a special textile screen that has long been used as a theatrical device. When lit from the front a scrim appears as an opaque sheet, one that can be decorated with patterns, pictures, or anything else that you could print on a piece of fabric. But when lit from behind a scrim’s printing and designs instantly vanish and you can see right through it.
Todd Man Out 