Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest 2008
July 30th, 2008 - Written by A7
Unfortunately, the rock, punk, metal and indie lineup was not nearly as exciting as last year, but did include a few great bands. In last year’s review, we noted that rock bands were scattered throughout the entire event, forcing fans of rock music to essentially purchase a full-festival bracelet. This year, it seems organizers were keen on grouping similar acts together. For example, one night featured Crash Parallel, Three Days Grace, and Plain White Ts. This allowed fans to see a full set of similar music. Also noted last year was the absence of hiphop and rap (or more notably, the odd singular inclusion of Kanye West). This year, organizers not only remedied that by bring in Snoop Dogg, Akon and Wyclef Jean (among others) but they organized it in such as way as to allow fans of the genre to experience one great day of music without separating all the acts on separate days. We would like to commend the Bluesfest organizers for their more ethical approach to planning the schedule and grouping genres of music together, allowing fans to pay for a single day rather than several different days.
As usual for Bluesfest, a very large portion of the music is blues (and appropriately so), but event organizers do a wonderful job of mixing in some great bands from other genres. Since CONFRONT Magazine focuses more on rock-based music, we have focused our attendance around rock, indie and alternative bands. Starting out Bluesfest was none other than Canadian rock legends Tragically Hip. With the Hip opening up Bluesfest to a huge 30,000 fan crowd, Bluesfest was bound to be a success from the start. The Tragically Hip certainly didn’t disappoint fans as the general consensus is the re-energized Hip have never sounded better.
The following day, Wintersleep performed somewhat opposite Feist in what was a really odd move by show organizers. Wintersleep, a Halifax band gaining a significant amount of radio play and popularity lately, was originally scheduled to play the River stage at 8:45, which would have been a good opening for Feist. For some reason, organizers changed the band’s start time to past 9:00, which resulted in them playing their set at the same time as Feist. As you can imagine, they started with about 8000 fans, and half way through their set, ended up with maybe 1000 fans as everyone left to see Feist. It was a shame, and it did seem to affect the band’s performance; They could only be described as “less than enthusiastic”. Feist on the other hand performed a lively set to a rabid crowd of Ottawa fans. The venue was so packed for Feist, the crowd went from the Bank of America stage she performed on all the way past the Rogers stage to the back fence. With the layout of the venue as it is, she also managed to draw approximately 1000 non-paying fans who lined the streets to catch a glimpse and hear her belt out a great set.
Although we were unable to attend, we understand Snoop Dogg performed on Sunday to a large 25,000 fan crowd in the middle of the day, proving that some acts can draw fans at any time slot, not only the final headline time at 9:30. Following Snoop Dogg, in a completely different genre of music, was Primus. Attendance was likely higher thanks to the fantastic weather that graced the festival; Many last-minute tickets were sold at the event. On Monday, Matthiew Good performed to a much smaller crowd of fans, as he was pretty much the only big draw that night (does anyone even remember Matthiew Good?). Tuesday was perhaps the oddest night of the festival, as it featured no less than three significant acts, all performing at the exact same time. At 9:30, the Bank of America stage featured Fergie, while the River stage hosted Stars, and the Black Sheep stage featured Tokyo Police Club. Although Fergie was not an interest of ours, having to choose between the more established Stars and the hot up-and-comers Tokyo Police Club made for a confusing night. The strangest part of the night came from the completely wild and packed crowd at the Roots stage for Micheal Franti and Spearhead. The entire crowd was hopping, screaming and singing along the entire set. Go figure.
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