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July 8th, 2011 was a Friday and though a glance skyward suggested that the perfect weather of that year’s Ottawa Bluesfest might take a hit I hoped for the best and headed down to LeBreton Flats in time to watch the gates open for the evening.
I started at a sidestage listening to some world-beat pop courtesy of an Australian act with the colourful name Blue King Brown before bouncing to a different sidestage for a band called Harper and Midwest Kind, another group from Down Under who focussed more on their own chunk of the world’s beats, presenting a super-interesting didgeridoo-drenched take on outback blues to a very large and enthusiastic crowd.
This was one of several summers when I was writing daily reviews for the Bluesfest’s website and I felt it prudent to get around the festival as much as possible, so as much as I was enjoying Harper and Midwest Kind I meandered yet again. This time I was aimed at the sidestage that I treated as a main stage: the Black Sheep (which was operating under a corporate name that year…the shame), where another new-to-me band was playing. I settled down on the still-dry grass (little bit of foreshadowing there) and jotted down some thoughts on the Cavaliers, whom my notes describe as an “acoustically-leaning dissonance-tinged country rock quartet.”
I also made note of the Cavaliers sublime cover of Neil Young’s Helpless, and how the first drops of the evening fell just as the band was finishing up their set.
The rain grew steadily worse as I rushed to the main stage field to see Wanda Jackson. Anyone who sang with Elvis Presley is okay in my books and I was eager to pay my respect and hear some good ’50’s era rock and roll. Unfortunately as soon as she began she had to stop. The rain wasn’t so heavy but it was blowing sideways towards the stage and on to all of the band’s gear. It simply wasn’t safe and the weather didn’t look like it was going to improve anytime soon.
As Wanda Jackson and her band left the stage a team of roadies snapped into action like a NASCAR pit crew, frantically moving equipment and covering everything with plastic sheets that snapped in the wind like flags in a hurricane. The same frantic action was happening on the other main stage as they attempted to prepare for the evenings big draw, The Black Keys.
Through a fluke of good timing I had ducked into the merchandise tent just as the sky opened up in earnest; many others were not so lucky. The rain came fast and it came hard; anyone caught in the deluge was bound to be drenched through. From inside the merch tent I could hear the thumping of Hey Rosetta! still rocking away on the stage behind me… sometimes nothing can stop those hardy Newfoundlanders.
Eventually even the muffled sounds of Hey Rosetta! went silent, and I stood there listening to the pounding rain bounce off the roof of the merch tent as the scheduled start time for The Black Keys came and went. While the crowded merchandise booth did brisk business much of the talk around the tent pondered whether there could possibly be any more music on such a soggy night. Some people decided to go home, most did not.
Finally – an hour after the downpour had begun – the weather started looking up. Roadies attacked the main stage with squeegees and towels and the big screens came on to assuage our fears: “STICK AROUND WE ARE NOT DONE YET’.
Buoyed, people surged back onto the field jockeying for position for The Black Keys. It was clear that some of the crowd had left but most had held on, and good for them. It’s been my experience that it’s precisely after a hard rain delay that one often gets an epic show, and so it was on this night. And it makes sense too: the band has been sitting backstage itching to play, they truncate their setlist to favour the heavy hitters, and the crowd is reduced to die-hard fans who are seething for live music. It’s the perfect storm for an unforgettable concert, if you’ll pardon the pun.
At 10:35 the lights went down, the roar of the crowd went up, and The Black Keys finally took the stage. Their opening song built from a high falsetto near-ballad complete with an enormous rising disco ball into a sonic onslaught that I felt as much as heard, and after that the band never looked back.
Neo-retro and heavily riff-oriented, The Black Keys alternated between a quartet that included a frenzied bassist and an old school synth player and the straight up guitar/drums duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney. With the push of the storm The Black Keys were unstoppable.
Dousing the audience with the glare of dozens of pulsating aircraft landing lights and a fuzz guitar tone that carried the weight of an aural brick wall, the band raged well past the 11pm curfew and the crowd gave back screams of appreciation with every extra song.
Ultimately The Black Keys delivered almost an hour of straight-out, no-holds-barred blast-rock to a crowd of fans that won’t soon forget it. I wrote up one heck of a glowing review once I got home that night and ironically the Bluesfest refused to post it because they didn’t want any mention of the rain delay posted on their website. I was quietly furious.
Todd Man Out 