Day: July 10, 2009

Friday night, Vero and I headed out to Bluesfest to meet up with Mike.  I had arranged to sell my ticket to Saturday’s festivities because I was going to HOPE Volleyball but I had never heard back from the woman so I had little hope.  Lo and behold, she did end up calling Mike’s cellphone and I was $20 richer!  Score!  So now, instead of my pass costing me $210, it cost me $190.  Eleven Days of Rocking for $190….$17 a day.  Not too shabby at all!

Carrie ended up showing up at Bluesfest again on Friday night…she couldn’t stay away once she got the taste of the festival!  We headed over to the Hard Rock Café stage where I wanted to check out Okkervil River.  We spent 30 minutes listening to some good alt-country tunes going on.  They were decent.  There was quite the crowd for them.

Then the ‘Friday Main Event!’ came along in the form of the Sam Roberts Band on the Rogers stage.  This is their fourth year in a row and I doubt they will ever miss a Bluesfest.  I have managed to catch them a few times over the past year as they are promoting their excellent album ‘Love at the End of the World’.  I even managed to get surprised tonight by hearing No Sleep, Dead End and Uprising Down Under…a couple of tunes I haven’t heard in awhile.

Unfortunately for the show, the volume was lacking.  There is this constant fear of breaking the noise by-law this year and there are by-law officers with their decibel readers around the area (supposedly…I have yet to see one but I keep reading about it in the Citizen).  This produced an adverse effect in that the show just didn’t feel…rocking at first.  In fact, I found the band to be playing at a fairly slow tempo for the first couple of songs which was uncommon.  Plus, the choice of opening songs didn’t keep up the momentum…Love at The End of the World was great…but then they proceeded with No Sleep and Lions of the Kalahari.  Perhaps they were trying to get the less frenetic ones out of the way to make room for the rest?

Fortunately, about half way through the set they cranked up the energy a notch and this was the band that I have grown to love.

Some highlights:
– While the girlfriend does not care for Sam’s non-shaggy look, I remarked at how much he resembled Cat Stevens!
– Mind Flood…always, always, ALWAYS a great closer of the night.  Matt was wondering when the set would end as Mind Flood started and I commented “Oh, in about 15 minutes.” and his eyes went wide wondering what onslaught of rock was coming his way!
– The majority of the Love at the End of the World songs have great energy!  The crowd loves it.

All in all, I’ve seen better SRB shows, but I can’t say they disappoint.  It was my friend Carrie’s first SRB concert and they won a fan.  I’m going to assume that this will be the last time I see the band before they end their summer tour and most likely take some time off.  But who knows what the rest of the summer has to offer?

After the concert, we said goodbye to everyone as Vero and I had to head off to pack our things for HOPE Volleyball.  We did manage to scour the merchandise booth.  I picked up a couple of great looking US Tour Posters from the band that I’ve had my eye on for awhile on the website (I just hate paying for that shipping!) and Vero picked up a great t-shirt.  I also bit the bullet and picked up three Bluesfest concert posters.  In the previous years, I had looked at them and didn’t feel like paying $50 – $100 on an autographed poster of the event.  But I had no idea that there were unautographed copies for $25!  So I said “What the heck?” and bought 2007, 2008, and 2009 and now I will only have to fork out $25 each year I go.  I found that 2007 and 2009 were really cool looking posters whereas I wasn’t too keen on the 2008 ‘Funkalicious’ themed one.  I am a lover of the streamlined art…not the crazy stuff.

I can feel the Gauntlet creeping up on us…my bones are getting tired from rocking and this is only Day 3 of 12 days of Bluesfest!

Setlist (from my weak memory…probably out of order):
01: Love At The End Of The World
02: With A Bullet
03: No Sleep
04: Lions Of The Kalahari
05: Fixed To Ruin
06: Dead End
07: Detroit ’67
08: Hard Road
09: Up Sister
10: Bridge To Nowhere
11: Uprising Down Under
12: Brother Down
13: Them Kids

Encore
14: Where Have All The Good People Gone?
15: Mind Flood

I mentioned to Carrie that in comparison to Day 1 of Bluesfest, Day 2 blew it out of the water.  This was the start of Bluesfest that we all hoped for.  I must also admit that I don’t think there will be a night that will top Thursday night’s events, even if KISS is coming next Wednesday.

Vero and I headed down to the fairgrounds around 7:30 and searched around for our people. Matt and Karilee found out and we soon found Mike as well. Mike let us know that a bird pooped on his arm earlier which is hilarious.

Up first was Metric. Now, to give you a little history on Metric, they are a band from Toronto whom I’ve had the opportunity to see live a few times at Bluesfest but always passed them up for another band playing. Their live shows have become things of legend and I’ve kicked myself for not catching them before. I then picked up their new album ‘Fantasies’ and I’m not lying when I think a) This will be the album that will make the band explode b) It’s probably my favourite album of 2009 and the year isn’t over yet. It’s catchy, it’s got melody, it’s got everything. Honestly, don’t pass this album up.

So there you have it, Metric hit the stage with Twilight Galaxy which ended with some bombastic charm which introduced us to what would be the rest of the show. The rest of the show had Emily Haines moving around like she was in permanent workout mode. I LOVE IT! A singer with that much energy…it’s like she had some form of chocolate water at her keyboards! They played the majority of their new album with the exception of Front Row and Blindness I believe. I loved how Emily shook the tambourine during Help I’m Alive…her mannerisms were somewhat puppet-like sometimes and she was amazing to watch. She talked up the crowd quite a bit…gave a shout out to their beginnings in Ottawa when they opened up for Billy Talent years ago…they talked about their devotion to a new power in the universe…the power of love, before ripping into ‘Stadium Love’. They played Dead Disco as well as a few tracks from Live it Out like Monster Hospital and Empty (!!! One of my faves).

They got the crowd amped up so much that when they left the stage, there was a large portion of the audience demanding an encore. After five minutes, a lof people left but you could feel it in the air…they would be back. There was too much electricity in the cool night breeze to end it on that note! Vero, Mike and I went closer to the stage to join the cheers and sure enough the band did come out and bowed to us but indicated with their watches that they just didn’t have time to do another song. If there’s one thing I hate about festivals, it’s that it’s all stuck on a schedule! Anyhow, I thought that this must have been ultimate feeling for them…the crowd beckoning them back to show their adoration. Amazing, amazing set.

Up next was Ben Harper and Relentless7. I don’t know much of Ben Harper, other than the fact that he appears on some Pearl Jam bootlegs and everyone in the Pearl Jam community seems to (heart) Ben Harper. So I was quite interested to see them as the word on the street was he was one of the big names coming to the stage.

After loading up with a few beer in hand, we headed to the old faithful spot which had a crew of lawnchairs right next to us. You can’t get mad at these folks though as they had their kids with them and they were rocking out all night long! The band started up and there was Ben Harper sitting down playing lap slide guitar. Awwww yeah! Man, I didn’t know he played lap guitar! This is great!

What came down from the heavens was what can only be echoed from the headline of The Ottawa Citizen’s article: “A relentless onslaught of awesome”. I swear I must have wrote that! The band was incredible and EVERYONE was feeling the vibe. This was not Day 1 of Bluesfest which was lowkey…this was the true kickoff of the festival where there is some great rock hitting the masses on a beautiful summer night with no rain. They even covered Zeppelin’s ‘Good Times Bad Times’ as well as Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’. Mike was so impressed with the band that he was about to buy their double live vinyl album ‘Live from Mars’ for $47 but we realized that this was just a foolish venture!

Ben Harper has a voice that has been snatched from the angel’s and I’m glad that he’s down amongst us mortals singing to us.

Day 2 of Bluesfest will probably go down in my books as the best of the festival but we shall see by weeks end.

Setlist

Faster Slower Disappear Come Around
Number With No Name
Shimmer & Shine
Good Times Bad Times [Led Zeppelin]
Lay There & Hate Me
Why Must You Always Dress in Black
Red House [The Jimi Hendrix Experience]
Another Lonely Day
Skin Thin
Fly One Time
Keep It Together (So I Can Fall Apart)
Boots Like These
Under Pressure [Queen]09
Up to You Now