2006-08-20 - 23:50

This pond is froggier than it used to be

Last Thursday, the Folk Festival organizers put together a great show at Capital Music Hall. Although I didn't know the first two acts, I ended up extremely impressed by the full line-up.

First off was Ridley Bent, playing a solo acoustic set that was full-on country. A solo set can be tough for an opener but Bent triumphed, with his strong voice, engaging personality, and fun lyrical narratives. The reggae-tinged number that he dropped when called back for an extra song was an unexpected treat, as well.

The Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir roared through next, stomping and growling their way through a raucous, fast-paced set. The drummer's unusual kit caught my eye early; but the whole band proved to be very entertaining.

I didn't realize that Amy Millan would be backed up by Paso Mino, recently seen performing at Bluesfest with Jason Collett and Feist. That was a cool surprise, even if the guitarist ended up smacking around his uncooperative amp. My opinion of the set was much like my opinion of the album: pleasant and enjoyable, if not earth-shattering. Millan seemed to be having a good time, proving herself to be fully capable of holding her own without Stars.

As for The Sadies, they delivered, as always. I love their live sound; and they're such a dependably tight live unit. The highlight was an absolutely unhinged "Astronomy Domine," which capped a ten-song encore.

I managed to snag three setlists (AMGC, Amy Millan, and The Sadies), which should help me fill in some details when I write a more formal review.

Although my review is pending, I fully caught up with posting my backlog of pictures, which you can see here. The Bluesfest ones took a while, since I lack the quality control self-filtering that would let me cut the posting to a reasonable number of pictures.

This weekend was fairly slack. We got over to Gatineau Park for a hike around the King Mountain Trail with Aaron Saturday afternoon, before getting together with some of Laurie's friends Saturday night. The latter involved more wedding talk than I ever thought that I'd be having in my life.

The highlight, though, was a 512-342 Scrabble victory about an hour ago. I think that this was my first time breaking 500, which took three bingos: DRIVELS, NESTLEd, and FROGGIEr. Nestled and froggier were actually my last two plays (definitely a lucky draw at the end).

Now I just need to get through this week of work and I'm on vacation. Should be rocking.

J.