Another amazing, likely record breaking day at Ottawa Bluesfest Sunday. Tonnes of amazing talent even an honorable mention to mother nature for letting the rain stop in time for the headliners.
Started my day at Bluesfest with Everlast in the rain, lucky I always come prepared and had my rain gear with me. Was really surprised at the number of people already on-site at 3pm. My goal was to take in as many acts as possible in the afternoon and then catch Wu-Tang Clan and FUN on the Bell Stage. After Everlast I took a somewhat muddy walk down to the BlackSheep Stage to see Shakey Graves. This guy is a one man band who sings and handles all of his own percussion right from centre stage. He uses his left foot to keep time on a bass drum and his right foot to play the tambourine, I can’t even rub my belly and pat my head at the same time let alone sing and tap both feet in different rhythms at the same time so this was impressive.
During a break from the rain at the War Museum I caught most of Watsky’s performance and to be honest I didn’t get it. I don’t know if I missed something but last time I checked stringing together a bunch of words that rhyme and cursing as often as possible doesn’t make you a rapper, or even talented for that matter. But maybe that’s just my age shining through and I’m getting too old for some of this stuff.
After finally sampling the Bluesfest Pizza, which I highly recommend to everyone, from Gabriels it was time to get in place for Wu-Tang Clan. Once they finally started (about 15 minutes late) it took my ears, and body, most of the performance to adjust to the heavy bass but in all they delivered a great show which really got the crowd pumped up. At this point I was nicely embedded in the centre of the crowd at the Bell stage. The noise would continue but changed from body rattling bass to the ear piercing screams of thousands of teenage girls for country heartthrob Hunter Hayes. Hays wasted no time cranking out his hits, most of which seem to talk about him being single which was really bad for my ears but wonderful for the thousands of young teenage girl hearts that beat almost as loudly as his drummer.
Unfortunately I was too deep into the crowd at the Bell Stage and wasn’t able to get over to Tegan and Sara or Eric Burdon but that’s one of the pitfalls of Bluesfest, you have to make choices and even though my musical tastes would generally lean closer to that of Burdon what was about to happen made my choice 100% worthwhile.
FUN
Click to view slideshow.Headlining the night was Big Apple based FUN. And boy did they ever deliver. Everything about the performance was FUN it was clear that they were enjoying themselves as much as everyone of the thousands in attendance. But it wasn’t the performance that was magic, it was what happened about midway through the show when Nate Ruess looked out onto the crowd and told them it was likely the largest, and loudest crowd they’d ever played for. The crowd responded and got even louder and didn’t stop, not until the very end of the show that went on for over 90 minutes. What I experienced was an extremely humble group who was completely and utterly blown away by the response. It’s moments like that that are career defining, the moment that you know you’re there. You’re a star and last night we all witnessed something incredibly magical and that was the moment that Ottawa made FUN realize that they had all become superstars. As I posted on Facebook and Twitter last night, only one word needs to be said to describe that show and that word is WOW. With RUSH up tonight I think it’s safe to say that this year could be a record breaking year for Bluesfest.
Social Media #soundcheck
