Posted by 
“Turning music into money is like turning water into wine.”
-CR Avery
As I wandered the grounds of the Ottawa Bluesfest on July 11th, 2005 I marvelled at the need for festivals such as this to seek out so much sponsorship money, to the point of naming every stage after the most recent corporation that agreed to cut them a big enough cheque. I mean, are music festivals pure Angus beef cash cows or what? Giant redwood money trees, perhaps? With a cache of concession cash backed with the simple plan of charging $12 extra per person for this Monday evening show, an army of volunteer staff that trade their valuable time for nothing more than free entry, and of course the thousands who purchase enough unmoderately priced festival and day passes to pack the grounds nightly. Is it really possible that the fest requires sponsorship money to keep the boat afloat?
If so, I guess it’s because the real money gets siphoned towards headliners like Monday’s flash in the pan Simple Plan, a Canadian poppunk band of twenty-somethings who act like they’re sixteen-something for their thirteen-something fans. Despite the extra fee for the evening due to these whippersnappers (thankfully my little yellow lanyard pass got me in just fine) I only stayed for a couple of Simple Plan’s songs, including their first hit, the rather apt I’m Just A Kid. I gotta say it was heartwarming to see those kids up there making so much money off of so many clichés…well, lets just say luck and demographics seemed to be the band’s dominant feature and it just made me feel uncharacteristically happy for the lucky little runts.
Earlier I had checked out Percy Sledge and while not free of clichés himself at least they were his own clichés, or at least those of his peers. Though I was enjoying his set I left before he bled out his monstrous hit When A Man Loves A Woman so I could check out the African Guitar Summit over on the Black Sheep Stage. There I found an act that was precisely as advertised: a wall of that unmistakable sound of pure and clean melodic electric guitar sinews interplayed with a dancehappy polyrhythm section and heart-swelling vocals that soar to the peak of Kilimanjaro. Just go see any African pop guitar player that comes around and you’ll know the sound I’m trying to describe. Heck, if you go see any African pop guitar player that comes near your town it’ll likely be one of the guys from the African Guitar Summit anyway, which would make for a great show. Go.
Somehow I get the feeling that Alpha Yaya Diallo, Madagascar Slim, Mighty Popo, or Pa Joe were not the ones raking in the Cisco Systems/RBC/MBNA sponsorship money, but then they were playing on a stage that has always been (and remains) unsponsored. I won’t say that integrity is expensive, but it can cost one a lot of money sometimes.
Still, I wonder if Cravery was right. But then, Jesus had a pretty big sponsorship deal too.
(Disclaimer of shame: Shortly after completing my entry for this date I discovered a file containing notes that I had written directly upon arriving home from the festival on that long-past night. The notes clearly contradicted the ticket story I had just written and in that instant my prose melted into fiction. And so I sat down and wrote up the entry a second time, styling the more factual if less artistic version that you have just read. However, in an attempt to prove that I can be up-front and honest about my back-door factics* and dishonesty, I’ve decided to include the earlier, more creative memoir below, despite my fear that doing so will suggest if not downright prove to my dear readers that I’m often just making this stuff up, true as it all may be.)
On July 11th, 2005 I was in a very comfortable place physically but a bit of a rough place mentally. I had recently been dating a girl that I was a bit crazy about, and it turned out she was a bit crazy on her own (though not necessarily about me), and more than a bit noncommittal. Just a day or three before this date I took stock of the situation and decided to favour logic over emotion and I finally told her that I was done. I quit her cold turkey, and it was tough.
And while my brain was busy swimming in a stormy sea of self-imposed sorrow, out of habit and obligation my body was onsite at the Ottawa Bluesfest wandering from stage to stage and taking notes for my daily reviews, which were how I paid for my annual festival pass. Back then pretty much everyone I knew went to Bluesfest so I would have been running into friends at every corner – which probably helped my mental state a bit – but my new ex-girlfriend would have been there too, so I was likely keeping my eye out for her so I could easily wallow in more relationshipal muckimuck.
My guess is I saw several acts over the course of the evening – if only in snippets – but one act I know I saw that night was the late Percy Sledge (don’t worry, he was still alive at the time). How could I forget?
When a man loves a woman
Can’t keep his mind on nothin’ else…
Oh boy…why do I put myself through these things? There must have been something…anything…on one of the other stages that was worth checking out…
He’d trade the world
For a good thing he’s found…
What had I done? Had I completely blown it again? Was I making a big mistake? Sniffle…
If she is bad, he can’t see it
She can do no wrong…
Well, luckily that wasn’t true. She could do wrong, oh, she could do wrong with the best of them. The question was, could I see past all of that? And could I put up with all of that? And if so, for how long?
But then, you know, three verses later music goes and saves your life. Like it usually does:
When a man loves a woman
Deep down in his soul
She can bring him such misery
If she is playing him for a fool
He’s the last one to know
Loving eyes can never see
Yes when a man loves a woman
I now exactly how he feels
‘Cause baby, baby, baby
I am a man
Yes Percy, yes! She was bringing me misery! She was playing me for a fool! I know exactly how you feel Mr. Sledge! ‘Cuz I’m a man!
And just like that I decided to stick to my guns and keep my ex exed. Then I went to see Simple Plan on the mainstage and then the very next day I met m’lady for the first time.
Funny how things work out.
*Factics is a homemade typoword that is defined as: “tactics used to suggest, if not prove, facts”.
Todd Man Out 