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By 2003 the Ottawa Bluesfest was a festival on the rise, still a few years from its heyday. They had recently moved from the barren setup on the undeveloped LeBreton Flats to City Hall where they had stages set up around every corner of the building. The lineup was getting stacked with more and more top-notch entertainment and the crowds were getting thick with lawnchairs.
(Okay, let’s not go there…not just yet anyway. The lawnchair problem at Bluesfest seemed to burgeon along with the popularity of the festival itself, and as such still was a few years from coming to a head.)
July 8th was devoted to Sheryl Crow. I don’t think I saw anyone else that night and I don’t see why I would have needed to, her set alone was certainly worth the price of admission (he types colloquially). Sheryl was pretty darn big at the time and she had plenty of songs in her arsenal that even the most proletariat fans would recognize, like First Cut Is The Deepest, If It Makes You Happy and Strong Enough, all of which were played on this night. Near the end of her set she even threw in a Led Zeppelin song for those that had been dwelling under a rock for the previous few years.
Of course she closed with some huge singalongy hit that eludes me at the present time which I’m sure sent us all away happy. Not too shabby for a weeknight.
Todd Man Out 