There’s
not enough said and praises sung about home grown talent when
you consider home is where it begins for everyone -- and that
includes the biggest stars on the planet. Which is to say --
and the blues says it best --there’s no circumventing
getting started, getting acquainted with the genre's best, and
paying one’s dues.
If
last year’s FestiBlues featured mostly the genre's established
players, this year the programmers dedicated themselves to making
the case that the blues is not only a structure but a feeling,
and that the feeling doesn't have to restrict itself to the
structure proper (12-bar), which is why we have R & B, and
many other styles of music that have been informed by the blues.
The
blues form continues to endure because it responds to hard luck
and bad times wherever and whenever they are found, in part
because 12-bar, as a structure that features a major cathartic
element (The G in the key of C), isn’t restricted to a
particular culture or era. From its Mississippi Delta origins
the blues has been embraced by regions as diverse as the former
Yugoslavia to Kazakhstan. The reasons are self-evident: we all
experience hurt and loss, we look to the various art forms and
performers to articulate our feelings so we can move on to good
times and better days (and nights), which is why the blues can
also be happy and uplifting.
Doing
that tradition proud were five days of exceptional FestiBlues
performances from names we’re going to be hearing a lot
more from, from a festival that continues to evolve by providing
a musical forum that allows for what needs to be said as it
concerns modernity and its minefield of malaises that has left
too many of us in the lurch – “I’ve got a
mind to give up living, and go shopping instead.”
Among
this year's festival highlights was the ageless Carl Tremblay,
whose raucous, sawdust rich voice is surely among the best in
the business, and the harp playing of Jim Zeller, who has been
there and has come back to tell us about it. And then there
was the torrid guitar work of Jimmy James, whose unique interval
suggests that he still listens to music that came to life in
the 60s, and that he still (praise be the Lord) hasn't completely
rid his brain of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds. 
Lewis
On The Rocks were at their boogie woogie best featuring music
from the 60s while Sylvain Cossette remembered and reinvented
the 70s and earned kudus from fans of Sting, Queen and Pink
Floyd.
Getting
back to basics, Chuck Lambert offered the crowd some much appreciated
blues grown and deep fried in the USA: his version of "Little
Red Rooster" was dead on as was his original material.
Bryan Lee delivered a terrific set of New Orleans blues and
his was perhaps the most nuanced and emotive performance of
the festival.
From
France, Antoine Holler et Charles Pasi distinguished themselves
with a set that expertly navigated between funk and soul and
R & B. No surprise that they are regarded as a treasure
back home.
In
the spirit of covering all the blues bases, FestiBlues features
a competition for the up and coming blues makers. This year's
winner was the amazing word man Bernard Adamus who will be invited
to play in a festival near Paris as well as record a demo in
a professional studio. The competition also features an important
exchange program where students of media get to work with the
organizers of the event.
Closing
the curtain on an event that predicts next year will be even
better, which is to say the festival programmers are, in their
own fashion, as creative as the musicians that came to play,
was a memorable 90 minutes of music from the Porn Flakes, who
needed no introduction to fans that had come from far to hear
them. 
No
less important than a group’s often taken-for-granted
rhythm section is a festival’s backdrop. Ahunstic Park,
the home of FestiBlues, features acres of natural grass and
a variety of stately trees that provide cover when it rains,
and shade when it’s hotter than July. Good food and spirits
are never far away and the area has been designed in consideration
of blues lovers who come from afar with kids that need looking
after and a choice of activities. There was also an A-major
emphasis on ecology, and making the public aware of its importance
in the context of outdoor festival venues and their immediate
surroundings.
And
recognizing that for most of us the blues is almost always related
to finances that could do with some improvement, FestiBlues
is almost free: only 5 dollars/day. No wonder every year attendance
records are broken. So until 2010, hang in there.
