Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest 2010: Part 3
LeBreton Flats Park; Ottawa, Canada

The last trimester is the toughest but most rewarding, or so we have heard. After nine days of seeing bands, even the absent uteruses of TMT’s two intrepid reporters are tired. We know, we know. No one wants to hear about the labor pains; they just want to read capsule reviews about the babies playing live shows. Or something like that. Anyway, here is our third and final roundup of Ottawa Cisco Bluesfest 2010. If you want even more coverage of the acts we saw and many that we didn’t, the organizers have loads of interviews and backstage coverage of many of the festival’s artists at this handy link.

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Hollywood Minute…Spoiler Alert!

The battle of the Kevins — Bacon vs. Costner — concluded during the home stretch of Bluesfest, with Costner taking home the golden nothing for his show with his Modern West band. Costner might have won the battle but not the war, as K.C. and the Modern West delivered competent heartland roots music, but nothing that turned LeBreton Flats into a field of dreams.

Although not Tinseltown royalty, Great Big Sea’s Alan Doyle has spent recent time away from his band to cavort around Sherwood Forest with pal Russell Crowe for the upcoming Robin Hood flick. Doyle’s main gig resides with GBS, however, and it’s not hard to see why. The level of popularity of the band is staggering considering their conservative take on trad-pop. Still, Great Big Sea know how to whip a crowd into a frothy mess, which is more than we can say about 30 Odd Foot of Grunts.

Time will tell if Drake returns to the acting stage. For he is no longer Degrassi’s Jimmy; he is Drizzy and surely enjoying all the star trappings that the role demands. This festival night, it means facing a shitload of mostly teenage, screaming females. Drake gave the girls what they wanted: a flirting, overtly sexed-up come on, leading to a feature performance of his monster hit “Best I Ever Had.”

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Noodle Scratchers

It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to tell you that there are dozens of outfits up and down the Ottawa Valley playing the same down-home stew as Old Crow Medicine Show. Still, it is hard to fault a band laid bare at the front of the stage giving it their acoustic all. Elvis Perkins in Dearland is a mystery still not solved. Categorizing Perkins is tricky, but the band’s genuineness to each genre shone through, and showbiz family ties aside, there’s no novelty act at play here.

Islands are a novelty, but a decent one. It is hard to say if the band has lived up to its promise on record, but live the white-attired crew seems to put on a distinct and different show every time we’ve seen them, possibly due to Nick Thorburn’s penchant for mixing up lineups and the consequences that has on Islands’ tracks. On the other hand, could familiarity be breeding contempt as far as Stars are concerned? There is really nothing to dislike about Montreal’s charmers, but they rubbed against the grain with their Bluesfest show. It might have been our lack of enthusiasm for the many songs played from latest disc The Five Ghosts. It may be that Torquil Campbell’s showman schtick grows tiresome at times (we still looove Amy Millan though). It might have been the stinky, shirtless superfan standing nearby belting out every lyric at the top of his lungs…

Has Craig Finn always been such a diva? Wethinks The Hold Steady’s frontman used to actually play the guitar than simply have it hanging off his body while he acts out his whip-smart words, but that may have been the heat thinking. Regardless, Hold Steady’s set soothed all the right spots, as the band played through a long and lively set of favorites (“Hurricane J,” “Chips Ahoy!”, “Sequestered in Memphis,” Your Little Hoodrat Friend,” etc.).

Darting in between stages and shows, we caught glimpses of a well-attended gig by Derek Trucks and wife Susan Tedeschi, The Joe Krown Trio representing the more traditional end of the Bluesfest spectrum (and who ended with a fantastic Hammond-led rave up of Bobbie Gentry’s classic “Ode to Billy Joe”), suburban power poppers Hollerado, a pleasant but ultimately unobtrusive headlining concert by longtime faves Crowded House, great acoustic noodlery courtesy of Matt Andersen, high school heartache reminiscences from Matthew Good, and Marcia Ball & The Voise of the Wetland Allstars, who, as a multiple Grammy nominee with a stacked band of Louisiana veterans in tow, should have commanded a bigger audience and stage.

Speaking of veterans, Jimmy Cliff, rocked like a man half his age, playing a set of perrenial favorites like “Sitting in Limbo,” I Can See Clearly Now,” and “Rivers of Babylon.” But were we in the john during “The Harder They Come” or did Cliff not play his signature song? Devastating!

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We’ll Meet Again We Know Where We Know When

Devastating is the only way to describe the sparsely-attended but spectacular tent show by Konono Nº1. Small crowd be damned! The extra space just gave those in attendance the nice opportunity to shake some of the rust off their undercarriages. Congolese thumb piano wizardry and fearsome unison singing and dancing collided at high speeds, and in 20-minute trance doses, sweeping everyone in sight up in a rhythmic wall of sound. We left elated but silently cursing ourselves for missing even a little bit of the beginning. Simply intoxicating.

Even early in the day, the big stage gives bands a leg up to play to bigger crowds; there is just much more space to gather, watch performers, and relax. Those wanting a breather while The Budos Band played would have no rest, for they were too busy giving themselves over to the irresistible sound of Latin jazz, 70s soundtracking, Fania, and funk grooves. It was blazing hot, but no one seemed to notice or care because Staten Island’s finest was at the top of its game.

Equally enthralling and entertaining were Blonde Redhead and The Gories. Sitting at opposite ends of the musical spectrum, both gave memorable performances. The Gories played under strange circumstances. Using a stand-in drummer when regular stickswoman Peggy O’Neill’s flight was delayed, Mick Collins and Dan Kroha relayed beat instructions between each song before joking that all their songs had the same beat anyway. No such makeshift decisions were required for Blonde Redhead, who lulled their dedicated drove into a near dream-like state with its blissful roar.

A lot has happened to both Weezer and us since we last met face to face. When The Blue Album was released, Weezer were a scrappy upstart. Now they are America’s Good Time Band. There’s not much of a debate to be had when discussing if Weezer’s albums have digressed since their first record, but one can’t argue the fact that the group is one of the more consistently great singles band around. So, along Blue Album chestnuts like “Say It Ain’t So,” “My Name Is Jonas,” and “Undone,” the large throng was treated to every other significant hit: “Hash Pipe,” “Dope Nose,” “Island in the Sun,” “El Scorcho,” “Pork and Beans,” and gonzo cock-rock set-closer “Beverly Hills.” When Weezer weren’t playing their own tunes, they took stabs at Metallica, MGMT, and Lady Gaga (with Rivers Cuomo in blonde wig). Commanding the stage, crowd, and any place he could fit (including, at one point, a garbage can on stage), Cuomo was in rare form, as was the whole band, amping up the fans mercilessly until the Bluesfest-closing finale of “Buddy Holly” was over.

It was a super-strong finish to a festival that seems, as unbelievable as this might read, to grow each year. On some nights, we witnessed more impressive mullets and cougars in the crowd than impressive bands on the stage, but each and every day was entertaining as all get out. Same time next year? You bet. Until then, we need home for a rest.

by David Nadelle and munroe

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