Features | Festivals

Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest 2007

By Conrad Amenta | 31 October 2007

Okay, let's start where we feel most comfortable: the name, announcing itself from the t-shirts of volunteer beer vendors and college kids promising collapsing chairs in exchange for your application for a Mastercard or extolling the depths of personal fulfillment hidden in each sample-sized pack of Clodhoppers, is The Cisco Systems' Bluesfest. Why is CMG covering it? Have we decided to analyze that somehow un-ironic, wholly appropriated and, at least as it's presented from the massive MBNA Stage, stagnant genre, the critical equivalent of shooting barreled fish that have already been shot a few times? Emily Haines isn't the only one to make this obvious observation during Metric's seemingly annual performance: Bluesfest, which has become as close to an institution as a corporately funded festival with a predominantly suburban appeal can, began to integrate into their usual lineup of Johnny Lang and Tony D and the Power Hour a progressively informed selection of well-respected indie rock groups. Last year, hawing back and forth between Calexico and Broken Social Scene, I wondered what was going on. Kevin Drew called Ottawa "The town that fun forgot" in their opening number, somehow, inexplicably, reconciling the giant festival cheque his band earned and the throngs of rabid admirers with the preconception that Ottawa shouldn't have a festival where one had to choose between Broken Social Scene and Calexico at all.

LeBreton Flats has been earmarked for the kind of condo development that resembles a forest fire through woods in drought. And there, wrapped in the commercial clusterfuck that any summer festival can't help but be, is the artful, gorgeous War Museum, through which one actually had to walk to reach tertiary stages, where one strangely considers the different kind of battles our generation lackadaisically learns about -- grainy video of strafing fighters and Vimy Ridge testaments looping as outside we're reminded that our beer cups are biodegradable and to please remit them to the CupSuckersT provided.

My Dad Vs. Yours

...so, you can understand why these NBH alumni might have seemed unsure at first, had to shake off early and uncustomary rust before continuing their careful inhabitance of the vast landscapes their textural post-rock implies. Strange enough the setting and nature of the festival; stranger still local standbys and mainstays waiting stageside, shifting from foot to foot, as a radio DJ for the type of station that wouldn't play instrumental indie rock to save itself from being burnt down around its employees' heads reads a list of sponsors from his notepad. Guitarist Jose Palacio's dedication of the dance-infused "The Harder We Work the Behinder We Get" to all the local rock bands confirmed as much: the band felt the invisible divide, too, sensed that a performance at Bluesfest was less a transcendence of long van rides and fifty dollar cuts of the door to be split five ways as it was a reaffirmation of those barriers. The spoiling of having roadies and free food and beer for a day was all the more bittersweet for the knowledge that this is how they tour on the other side.

Ohbijou

The Torontonians' brand of neo-folk was stretched even further than I remembered, adding classical and electronic elements, not to mention having a drummer who can play trumpet. The crowd that emerged from seemingly nowhere demanded an encore, an uncustomary outburst for the strictly regimented stances and glances at one another. Something happened when I wasn't looking: people realized how amazing Ohbijou are. Having performed in Ottawa a few times before (their set at Ottawa's Ladyfest a standout in my mind), it seems like the city presents popularity as a steep slope down which one unexpectedly scrabbles and pitches: bands like the Acorn play to sparse rooms and then, suddenly, the decision to show up five minutes before their set means you can't get in. Ohbijou quietly considered that precipice long enough and are now tumbling headlong into those strange depths. Congratulations, Ohbijou: you're now, deservedly, popular in Ottawa.

Shout Out Out Out Out

I'm not going to mince words: Shout Out Out Out Out fucking rule live, playing a solid hour of non-stop, duel drumming dance and amp-mounting cowbell. They explained nonsensically what their instrumental songs were about as the crowd gradually warmed and began to move. I was sitting on a hill some distance off, observing from behind a different stage having somehow confused a volunteer with a quick wave of my pass into letting me backstage, where Port-a-Potties are replaced with air conditioned trailers and soccer moms guard coolers of complimentary Coors Light. From where I was sitting, I could see the crowd gravitate, see a band that has to establish and maintain that energy night in and night out, skillfully pull from each sun burnt set of shoulders a mandatory shimmy. Not quite capable of the transcendental utopias of sweat built by !!! and yet still fully in control, the Edmontonians provided an early highlight to a loaded lineup, crashing against the walls and strictly controlled confines of such a contingent festival.

The White Stripes

Ottawa's own version of MTV's Total Request Live, White Stripes took the stage while giant screens solicited text messages from the crowd, who accommodated with wishes of happy birthdays, OMG LOLs, and in the hizzouzes aimed at people standing a few feet away. It's really something to see when the White Stripes, a band who prior to "Hotel Yorba" probably had trouble filling five hundred capacity venues, can be so slickly produced, can generate such a monstrously loud sound more potent than the day's AOR blues acts, with their backup singers and horn sections. Jack White slipped in mentions of Ottawa, much to the crowd's delight, in gestures that would have rolled the eyes of the more discerning (read: condescending?) crowds of their used-to-be-core fanbase. Much of their set was refreshingly littered with blues standards, Jack's guitar dirty and spitting despite the clinical atmosphere, but there's something about him sauntering across a calculatedly constructed catwalk while Meg still pounds away with infantile skill that makes one stop and ask, bewildered, "really?" The appeal of White Stripes, for me, has been that they can balance a sense of authenticity and intimacy with accessibility. To see them now so comfortable in front of tens of thousands, strutting their arena rock bluff, is to feel somewhat segregated from what one imagines to be the process of their songs. They used to be so garage; now, amid the corporate finagling, they are disappointingly fluent. Jack still plays with consummate skill, but that skill has been subsumed into the hot-dogs-and-t-shirts atmosphere of a very mainstream festival. Their performance was flawless, and yet still neutered of personality from the moment they took the stage.

Relief Maps

Under a ridiculously thick blanket of summer heat, Relief Maps began with keyboardist/guitarist Dusty Dewan solo under a Madvillian helmet, his melon a beacon signal to the crazy while the rest of us huddled in what shade we could find; the early afternoon crowd were a bit baffled, roasting as they were in cool white t-shirts and with dripping water bottles in hand, but the band played through, offering a slightly tempered version of what was becoming an increasingly giddy set of recent performances. Still one of the most reliably enjoyable indie rock bands from Ottawa right now, songs from their debut EP Sunrise Seaport were complemented with songs that expand only slightly on their proficient and unpretentious formula.

Final Fantasy

I knew already that Pallett uses a looping station to combine string parts and the occasional keyboard, much the way that Andrew Bird does (though admittedly Bird's acrobatic solo act is far more ambitious). What I didn't have adequate appreciation for is the tactility of a violin, which Pallett uses to great effect to duplicate the studio versions of his often impressive (and improving) songwriting. Knuckles rapped and taps on the violin's frame made the instrument seem much less the impenetrable indicator of status that it can sometimes seem.

Though the heart Pallett wears so openly on his sleeve does sometimes tempt one's more cynical side to jab, especially with the accompanying overhead projector show, which offered one-word visuals like "Illumination" and cutouts of kissing figures, it's difficult to ice over the sonority of a solo violin, outside at a summer festival. The crowd, peppered with the odd folding chair tourist, chortled to themselves in mild amazement when Pallett offered lines like "and when his massive genitals refused to cooperate," but the fan base took over the crowd so inexorably so that by set's end most were pretending to have been onboard from the start. Two encores later, including a fantastic cover of personal favorite (ahem) Bloc Party's "This Modern Love," Final Fantasy laid claim to highlight status, meeting almost unreasonable expectations and feeding off of the energy of a loving crowd. Old favorites (if they're old enough to be considered such) like "The Ballad of Winn and Regine" and lesser-knowns like "Song Song Song" were met with equal, hushed attention followed by gushy admiration. As much as spectacle and noise call attention to any act's viability as performers, that Final Fantasy reduced much of the crowd to near-silence and then let that silence remain for as long as possible before it elicited unsure clapping, was a performance unto itself.

Cat Power

Never is the dichotomy of Bluesfest's lineup more peculiar than when an indie standard takes one of the main stages. The oft-maligned suburban crowd, who set up with folding chairs, blankets, coolers and their spawn, sit with looks of confused or barely tolerating interest, like one observes scary and incomprehensible fashion trends among a younger generation's high school students. These same concertgoers, who had no qualms at shushing the similarly confused younger set during Van Morrison's performance a few days earlier, were strangely put off by Chan Marshall's throaty (but seamless) mix of songs from last year's The Greatest, Motown standards and a now-rote rendition of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" (though, really, how can any rendition of that song be anything but rote?). The latter extracted a half-motivated response from most of the crowd, a shaky bridge between the festival's two camps of classic rock enthusiasts who choose to see that music changes as a sign of a generation's failure to live up to standards and indie rock snobs who make ageism an aesthetic.

The cool breezes and setting sun conspired to make her set the anathema of the giant stage and Collosso-tronT from which she sang, the lefty swaying arm in arm with the big, corporate righty. There was no sign of hysterical Chan, or nervous or puckish Chan, despite early vocal warbles and a voice that somehow struggled through all of that stage's muscular amplification. She quickly settled into a comfortable space, but the distances between an adoring crowd were lengthened by her performances, which often seem turned inward; Marshall stands a distance from her band, off to the side, and speaks few words to the crowd. Her performance might have been intimate, everything that the many who wonder if she checks her own Myspace had imagined, had not it seemed like she were performing remotely from a isolated and unspecified location. She had lost much of the crowd by set's end; a deafening roar went up when, just minutes after she had finished to polite applause, Steve Miller opened up from the other stage and chair sitters leapt to their feet, having achieved the apex of their day.

"Now this," they tell us, "is music."

Built to Spill

There was a summer, probably about two or three years ago, when the decision to become a fan of Metric spread like typhoid fever or bubonic plague through both the young and old of Ottawa's indie community. Many good people I know were spared. Most were not.

So I found myself firmly in the minority becoming incensed at the discovery that Built to Spill, who are as close to an indie rock staple as one can find and, to my knowledge, have never played Ottawa before, were relegated to a forty-five minute set before Metric, who have played the Bluesfest two or three times and somehow still manage to backhandedly patronize the city for not being Toronto while still cashing a giant, festival-sized cheque. This is also to say nothing of the unpractical nature of giving a band of nine minute jams room to play only about four songs.

Built to Spill's set was, somehow, shockingly under-attended. The generational impulse that foregrounds the divide between Steve Miller fans (whom just one day earlier chastised my preference for Cat Power) and myself once again made itself felt; I felt good feeling bad, knowing that Built to Spill were underloved by a scene about seven or eight years my junior, who waited impatiently for Metric to take the stage in all their mediocre, overvalued glory.

By the end of Built to Spill's set the crowd had swelled, but my initial assumption that these were all late-comers was crushed by the realization that most were talking through "Big Dipper" and "Time Warp," not realizing the importance, at least for me, of these songs being played in my city, about which I've already dedicated far too much of Cokemachineglow's space. The number of those who stomped the ground through every swell of "You Were Right," which brought the early enthusiasm that "Liar" couldn't quite, were replaced by those who stared with arms crossed and occasionally glanced at their watch. The biggest cheer came when Martsch said, "We'll play another couple of songs, and then Metric will come up." Somewhere an indie rock guru's beard fell out and died an unacknowledged death in an overwrought metaphor for impotence.

Kanye West

My experience with hip-hop is generally limited to what happens in the space between my headphones or at friend's hip-hop show, so when confronted with the complete sea change of crowd and sentiment, the unapologetic bravado and spectacular commercialism of seeing Kanye West at summer festival, I didn't know whether to be alienated, roll with it, or write it off as not at all what a hip-hop show is supposed to do or be about anyway. I try not to think of people in terms of demographics, but the audience responded to West's every request, every convoluted gesture of showmanship like the frat and sorority base at which the show was marketed.

As for West himself, he provided such insights to his music as "I play all my favorite songs first. I put them first on the album, too," and then proceeded to take us "on a trip down memory lane" by playing a number of songs he had a hand in producing while spitting some mild karaoke over them. A brief sing-a-long with a Jay-Z track raised the practical question of whether or not it is a good idea to rap along with a considerably more talented emcee, no matter how good of a buddy he might be. West's deficiencies were foregrounded while the strength of his lyrics were lost in a clusterfuck of fingers raised in the shape of diamonds, whooping, miniskirts and high heels sinking into the dirty grass while I watched from a safe distance like a zoologist or anthropologist and (once again) felt old.

Strangely, the giant ego that a hip-hop show demands couldn't keep the instrumental moments from being the biggest interest. Turntableist A-Trak frenetically remixed Justin Timberlake's "My Love" in a display of virtuoso dexterity, but it seemed to confuse a crowd who came to bounce up and down. A string quartet again provided evidence of the audience change -- a brief foray into "Eleanor Rigby" provided no response, but into "Bittersweet Symphony" a cacophonous roar.

Those around me seemed to spend most of the concert on their cell phones, trying to find friends. The now familiar crawl of the text messages across the Collosso-tronT were littered with beacons of both "Jon: where u at?" and "Johnny D is at the party," as if we were standing in a club instead of a soggy field. Forgetting that all of the bravado usually draws out reaction, the predominantly college-aged, predominantly Caucasian crowd signified meaninglessly in gestures they must have been waiting some time to communicate in what they imagine must be their native context. Instead, Kanye West's set was predictably conflicted, a spectacle that undermined itself with its audacity, that emphasized the performer's weaknesses and glazed over his strengths, that tried to substantiate its aura of club exclusivity while simultaneously inviting and alienating broad swaths of people. Kanye West's primary demographic is apparently stupid white kids who don't get how smart his music can be. I came not knowing what to expect. I left knowing West's sharing of a stage with Hedley was only too appropriate.

Hi Lo Trons

Seeming small on the giant main stage, the local new wavers (and also NBH alumni) were the mosquito to the elephant of the Bluesfest's lawn chair riders and stringent non-dancers. I'm usually the first to walk off when a band credits a lack of audience participation to Ottawa's supposed lack of spirit (how is dancing out of obligation or fear of disappointing the band any less repressed than standing with arms crossed and nodding your head? Moreover, who gives a damn how the audience enjoys your set?), but it was forgivable given the mountain this band, usually seen blowing the doors off of dank, blue collar clubs, couldn't help but struggle to climb.

During their third song, the still perfect "Look, Wow," the band produced about twenty dancers and back up singers, which not only helped to fill out the stage but raised the energy level to result in absurdity. Costumed and improvised dance routines bounced off an invisible wall separating the band and audience, making me think that had they been playing one of the smaller stages their set might have been better appreciated by all, even those of us who were adoring them. But even with the feeling of detached exposition the stage's size imposed the Hi Lo Trons put on one of the most entertaining shows of the festival, Michael Dubue screaming and begging of the crowd their energy; one can't say that he didn't put in an effort relative to the size of their stage. This was the spot that a night earlier had hosted an act the size of Kanye West. The last day of the festival, that the grass was still destroyed from the rainy night and the stunning weight of the city's collected high school hip-hop tourists was fitting. I watched the city's best band as they were like specks, and ran out of words to speak again about the divide that Bluesfest can't help but represent.

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings

If the absence of dancing (or the resemblance of it to the pulling of teeth) was the defining feature of the Hi Lo Tron's set, then I'm interested to hear their observations about the effortless dance party that Sharon Jones and the highly polished act that is the Dap Kings affected. The Hi Lo Trons put as much sweat and effort into their set, but the Dap King's easy working of the crowd and professionalism somehow made the audience comfortable enough to surrender to the calculated buildup of their warm up set before Sharon Jones entered stage left, amid all the exuberance of her own dancing. Crowd participation was easy, eager dancers pulled from the crowd onto the stage to take part in Jones' stage show, and over the course of a week during which I wrote most of this article wanting to speak about the unfortunate but telling divide between big corporate music and Ottawa's fledgling indie community, Sharon Jones was the best of both worlds: expertly convoluted, calculatedly authentic, big city on a small stage, big festival in a small city.I couldn't ask for a more succinct complication of my entire premise, or a more rewarding experience. The audience was either mercifully free of the suburbanite crowd of which most of Bluesfest's primary demographic is comprised, or they were made indistinguishable by the act's accessibility. Needless to say, everyone was standing.

The strangest moment came when Ms. Jones told the assembled Caucasian crowd about how her two groups of ancestors, East Africans and Native Americans, danced for the cause of freedom in the face of colonial tyranny. The non-stop dance party hit a minor lag as most of us looked at each other and tried not to feel guilty. Some had the audacity to shake their heads and wonder superficially at the hearts of men before trying to horn in on the group of girls dancing a few feet away.

Bluesfest has, despite itself, become something of an institution. A nightly routine, a well-organized flashpoint for citywide participation, a commercial success and a credible festival, it's amazing that anything can so consistently bridge a gap while simultaneously calling attention to it. I only attended those shows that interested me, but it bears mentioning that Bluesfest also had the clout to add Bob Dylan to its lineup. This is important; that bands like My Dad Vs. Yours, Hi Lo Trons, and Relief Maps share a program page with Dylan is surely something that needs to be noted. Bluesfest isn't just becoming a cornerstone to Ottawa as a community (as opposed to a collection of scenes), but it's resisting the tendency for these things to become conduits for gentrification. Bands like Metric come off as alien and uninformed if they signify the exclusivity of their own scene from the stage, if they (however unintentionally) poke fun at the monolithic façade of a festival that includes local acts and treats them, if only for a day, like the artists they are. Bluesfest is far from the perfect festival. It shares with every big money-making summer mess the impulse to cynicism and the herding of people into pens designed to make one feel less than a human and more like a market. But at its core, somehow, this dichotomous, conflicted, and consistently rewarding commercial machine has a heart.