2007-07-14 - 3:01

Bluesfest home stretch

Bluesfest is rapidly winding to a close, bringing an end to a very busy stretch of concerts. (In fact, with very little of interest to me on the final weekend, I may make an early wrap after nine straight days.)

On the recap front, I wrote up a review of Sunday's shows, (including The White Stripes, as mentioned in my last entry), as well as a run-down of Final Fantasy on Monday.

The Final Fantasy show was great. I thought that Owen Pallett was a better frontman than when I saw him before, making for a well-paced show. His backing visuals were also interesting, too, handled by a girl working an overhead projector.

Eight songs on the last Final Fantasy album were supposed to be loosely based on the eight schools of magic in Dungeons and Dragons, so a lot of songs were introduced with a simple text of the school's name, such as Illusion or Divination. I had to chuckle when a guy close to me in the crowd got excited over Evocation and explained to his friends why it's the best. Truthfully, though, I may have out-nerded that guy, since I was pretty sure that Pallett only listed seven schools over the night, missing Abjuration. Ahem.

Anyway, the next night, I was mainly interested in seeing George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars; but I also caught Todd Snider by fluke. That turned out to be a great bonus, as Snider is hilarious, partially through his songs but even more so through his demeanour and storytelling. His comic timing and style was fantastic; he was like Mitch Hedberg with a guitar. Snider was one of the great surprises of the festival.

Unfortunately, the P-Funk experience was not as great as I had been hoping. The band was certainly bang-on, but Clinton only arrived after nearly forty-five minutes and his voice was in rough shape. He sounded somewhat better at the end of the night but he clearly couldn't carry the show. The crowd was also just so-so for this one. I had been hoping for a big party but something seemed to be missing. On the plus side, I did get one of the two drumsticks thrown into the crowd, which was a good piece of luck.

On Wednesday, I caught Cat Power, who entirely redeemed herself from the disastrous concert that I saw her play in Halifax five years ago. She stuck to vocals on this night, with a solid band behind her (including Jim White of the Dirty Three on drums). She seemed to be having fun on stage; and I really enjoyed the set, even though I failed to recognize a sizable portion of the songs (despite owning all of her albums).

After Cat Power wrapped up with no encore, I decided to head to the Barney Danson Theatre for a repeat look at Todd Snider, even though I was going to be ten minutes late. Fortunately, a fire alarm had put the show ten minutes behind schedule, so I found a seat just before he started playing. This was my only look at the indoor theatre during the festival and I enjoyed it. Snider was a lot of fun again, playing a set of mostly requests, with only a handful of songs repeated from the previous evening.

Last night was another abbreviated one for me, as I only caught Xavier Rudd on the River Stage. He is apparently very popular as I arrived at what I thought was a decent time only to end up well back in the field behind more dedicated fans. Apart from some unshushably chatty people in the crowd around me, I enjoyed myself at this show.

Even though Nick was next to me, I usually ended up with a better angle for photos, so he gave me his camera for the night. That was a lot of fun to play with, although it left me wanting a real camera like his. (There will be no digital SLR in this year's budget, though, I'm afraid.)

Tonight was also very fun. Once again, the rain stayed away at night, as it has all week. I showed up early to see Gogol Bordello for the first time and had a blast. They are manic on stage and the crowd was equally energetic, starting a low-aggro mosh, with lots of pogoing and people dancing in circles. I think I'm officially too old for such silliness but I still had to get in the mix. It was great how cool all of the fans were to each other, with seemingly no conflict amidst all the hopping and bopping.

When they wrapped up, I ran to the River Stage and saw Sebastien Granger et les Montagnes. This was my first look at the new project from the former DFA 1979 member and I liked what I heard in a short but punchy set. After losing ground to a pushy crowd, I really enjoyed seeing Built to Spill. While I'm far from an expert on the group, I had been quite looking forward to this show; and they delivered a very good set. They're not the chattiest or most visually dynamic band but I guess that you can let your music do the talking when it's in the form of a coordinated three-guitar attack.

With Metric coming up on the stage, I bailed early on the night. The crowd had been already getting to me and I've had universally poor experiences at past Metric shows. It's not that the band is bad, although I have seen them more often than seems proper given my modest appreciation for them, but their fans have always been difficult. I'm sure that some of the fans are cool and that I could have found a pocket of respectful folk somewhere in the throng; but I didn't like my chances of doing so. It was definitely better to leave early and retain positive memories of jumping around like a fool for Gogol Bordello.

With the festival winding down, I should be able to get through my backlog of pending reviews soon(ish) and then I'll start organizing my photos. It looks like I won't have nearly as many good ones as last year, for various reasons.

That may still take several days, though, since I got a bit behind on work this week while working from home and taking time out to help Laurie do the wedding invitations. With the invitations done and the cake being taken care of Monday, things are coming together well for the wedding (which was exactly three months away as of Friday).

Had I picked the opposite side of the stage to line up on for Built to Spill tonight, I could have talked to our wedding DJ again, too; as I saw him walking through the crowd. I take that as a good sign.

J.