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As true as anything attributed to Robbie Burns, the best laid plans of mice and men (and obsessive concertgoers) do indeed tend to go awry, but I prefer Doris Day’s take on it:
Whatever will be, will be.
On July 13th, 2011 I had every intention of starting the midweek Bluesfest evening circling around all five (or was it six?) stages until 9pm arrived, at which time I would split the headlining slot between Buddy Guy on the Hard Rock Stage and My Morning Jacket on the main stage. That was the plan, anyway.
But as I was passing through the turnstiles I found myself within audio range of the main concert pitch and my legs bee-lined me over to Metric, who were absolutely owning the crowd.
(I suppose I should come clean straight away and concede that I never made it much further. Metric had stopped me in my tracks and aside from a single outreach to the river stage I stayed put for the entire night. As it turns out even the legendary Buddy Guy would fail to make it into my Bluesfest experience on that Wednesday evening.)
After a pair of bombastic offerings Metric’s lead vocalist Emily Haines thanked the audience and vocalized a prevailing truth that almost everyone I knew agreed on back then during the festival’s heydays: “It just isn’t summer without the Ottawa Bluesfest!” Right on sister! I felt it, the band felt it, and about 20,000 other people milling around LeBreton Flats felt it, as one of Canada’s most admired and revered Indie bands made believers of the large crowd – myself included – with one strikingly distorted musical landscape after another under a beautiful sky on a refreshingly cool evening.
And then just four days later a freak gust of wind would blow the dreaminess away. Sigh. But that’s a story for another time.
In a feeble attempt to rescue a shred of my original plan I pulled myself away from Metric long enough for a quick trip to the river stage where Smokin’ Joe Kubek and Bnois King were warming up for Buddy Guy’s burgeoning crowd.
Smokin’ Joe pulled pure swampy southernness out of his big wide Gibson ES335 while King belted out as authentic of a Louisiana blues as you’re going to hear on this side of the border. They were fabulous and it’s a good thing; due to all the eager beaver Guy guys who had run straight from the gate to the Subway Stage to jockey for position Joe Kubek and Bnois King found themselves playing to the biggest crowd that stage saw all season.
No sooner had they finished their set than rumblings from the main stage pulled me away. I had hoped to catch at least a little of blues royalty Buddy Guy but My Morning Jacket had started early back over on the main stage so with a shrug and a sigh back went I.
It’s not that I’m a big MMJ fan; I’m not, not even a bit. But most of my friends are and I wanted to hang out with them. Plus I was reviewing the evening for the Bluesfest website and I knew if I found my friends I could get a lot more insight on the band, especially with regards to song titles and the like. That’s how serious this fool took his quasi-volunteer role of “reviewer”.
And so I raced back to find my posse and spent the rest of the set juggling plastic beer cups and my little notebook. Once I got home at the end of the night (after missing 100% of Buddy Guy) my notes (and the beers) allowed me to to pound out such informed verbosity as:
“Raging out of the gate with a collective timbre that hit the crowd head-on, My Morning Jacket started strong, opening with a sonic onslaught entitled ‘Victory Dance’.
Blending their opening number into the title track from their latest album, ‘Circuital’, MMJ kept up their wall-of-sound vibe, drenching the willing crowd in a thick band of distorted alt-pop.
Even when they try to be sparse My Morning Jacket end up in a supercharged cloud of ethereal southern psychedelia, as they did Wednesday night in the acoustically-driven ‘Golden’, replete with some tasty pedal steel playing from guitarist Carl Broemel.
During crowd fave ‘Mahgeetah’ the band turned in on itself, facing each other in a tight circle of head-banging catharsis, while for ‘Gideon’ they managed to keep things at a dull roar just long enough to show their effect-heavy trippy side…”
And…
“…My Morning Jacket capped what may just be the set of this year’s festival*with the blistering ‘One Big Holiday’, ending with a final thundering rock and roll coda that left fans both old and new screaming for more. A glance at the watch showed it was too close to 11pm for an encore, so that would have to be it for the night. It was enough…”
Ugh. No wonder they didn’t pay me to write the things.
Though I kinda liked this one:
“The grungy reggae of ‘Off The Record’ features a raunchy guitar riff that immediately conjures up images of Hawaii 5…”
As if MMJ fans knew Hawaii 5-0 back then. If there’s one thing my lack of journalistic knowledge has taught me: make your references obscure.
Harumph. I planned to circle this missive back to the ”…best laid plans…” bit but I’m suddenly at a loss as to where I was going with the whole thing.
Que sera sera.
*When, oh when will I learn that every time I type a lie the sweet baby Jesus shed’s a tear?
Todd Man Out 