Bluesfest: Day Eight

The "Dog Day Afternoon" at the MBNA Grassroots Stage was aptly named because the sun was beating down mercilessly. You could tell the evening was aimed at a younger audience because when I arrived there was only a few chairs and a gaggle of folks standing right in front of the stage barrier. Wintersleep was the first act I saw. The Halifax band sweat mercilessly throughout their set of cathartic indie rock. (I'm missing touring member Michel Bigelow, but his likeness will appear online sometime).



The guy who really deserves the Bluesfest Iron Man award is Wintersleep drummer Loel Campbell, who also played for Holy Fuck immediately afterward. I hope he drank a lot of water!



Holy Fuck's instrumental dance music was also very satisfying. I don't usually go for that sort of thing, but they put on a fine show.





The band I was most anticipating on this noticeably hot day was The Fiery Furnaces. I enjoyed their set but I think I may have built them up in my mind a bit too much. Good heavy guitar sounds, though.





I decided not to stay around for Metric. I've seen them before, and the Black Sheep Stage was calling (I distinctly heard it go "baaaaaah!"). Luke Doucet was on stage. I had to check the marquee since I didn't recognize him. He sounded much better than when I saw him at Zaphod's. His daughter Chloe came on stage to sing - an amazing voice for a 10-year-old.



Alejandro Escovedo put on my favourite set of the festival to date. Great stuff! I love roots rock, and Escovedo delivered it in spades, alternating punk workouts with high lonesome melancholy.



Coincidentally, he finished his encore with Neil Young's Powderfinger, just as Elliot Brood had the day before. Danny Michel also stopped by to guest on guitar for the tune.