Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest 2008
July 30th, 2008 - Written by A7
Thursday was one of the best rock nights at the festival, featuring the great line up of Crash Parallel, Three Days Grace, and Plain White T’s. Crash Parallel is a Toronto native band who have just started to get mainsteam airplay with their debut album released in May. They started out a little rocky, with vocals sounding a little rough for the first two songs, but gradually got into a grove and rocked a decent crowd with their soulful, laid back, Coldplay-like tracks. Three Days Grace then played a massively intense set on the Rogers stage, despite informing the crowd that their manager had passed away that morning. Perhaps that’s what fueled their intensity, but they played an incredible set and felt completely at home on the huge Rogers stage. Following Three Days Grace was Plain White T’s. Having heard their music before, I was initially looking forward to seeing them perform. Unfortunately, the crowd of 14 year olds and the “boy band” type performance they pulled off changed my mind about them quickly. Although I’m sure it’s great from a marketing perspective to go after the teenage girl demographic, it certainly made them appear less genuine.
Friday was another great lineup, with Theory of a Deadman, Metric and Great Big Sea. Unfortunately, Metric and Great Big Sea were playing at the same time, another decision that left us wondering what organizers were thinking. We believe the double-booking was intentional, as a way to artificially boost attendance numbers so they can boast record breaking numbers. There was no other reason we could see for them to put two very popular bands on at the same time. Regardless, it was another great night with massive attendance numbers, estimated at 30,000 fans. Theory of a Deadman performed a decent set to a fairly large crowd. Although they did perform well, we find Theory of a Deadman to bo a band with a couple of great singles, but not much else. Aside from their singles, the rest of their songs are just a little bland and boring. And it was apparent from the crowd as well, who would stay relatively calm (or maybe bored?) during most of the set, and go crazy when they would play one of their singles. Metric on the other hand is always golden, and performed another fantastic set to a fairly large crowd considering Ottawa’s love for Great Big Sea. Unfortunately, the sound isolation issue I mentioned earlier in the article was in full force as Great Big Sea’s loud and rowdy music completely overpowered Emily Haines’ soft and melodic vocals. Metric was being completely drowned out by the main stage.
As mentioned earlier, Saturday was hiphop day, featuring Akon and Wyclef and Sunday closed out Bluesfest with the original disco queen, Donna Summer. Neither day featured any significant rock band, so we opted to skip those days.
Despite the less than stellar rock bands this year, the sound spillover from competing stages, and the booking of multiple bands performing at the same time, this year’s Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest was very successful, from a financial standpoint with over 300,000 attendees, to an organizational standpoint. Many of the issues we brought up in last year’s article have been addressed, including the lack of hiphop, the flimsy security barriers that collapsed during the Alexisonfire performance (the metal gates were now heavy solid steel held together with metal pins), the flow of the crowd around the venue, and the lack of grouping of similar bands into a cohesive lineup. Kudos to the Bluesfest organizers for taking note and making the appropriate changes. Next year, if they are able to iron out the sound isolation issues and have major acts perform at different times, the festival will surpass all expectations and truely be the world-class event that it should be.
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