Bluesfest: Day Seven

Another day of wandering. First I went to the Main Stage to see Alanna Stuart. I've seen her open for Sharon Jones with Maya Ethier and perform with Peter Elkas. Her opening stint Thursday night was her first as the sole name on the marquee. She looked and sounded great and chatted quite a bit between songs (as she admits she is wont to do).



Then I scooted over to the MBNA Stage to see Elliott Brood. The sun was right in the face of Mark Sasso and he was sweating profusely.



I stayed to see all of Fiftymen's set - the only whole show I caught - and they sounded great. Dave Draves was along to help out on keyboards and my Sun colleague Alan Wigney played some harmonica. Fortunately for their various black-clad members the sun had gone down and there was a lovely cool breeze.



I headed over to the Main Stage, thinking I might see Etta James. The plaza was incredibly crowded. I'm just can't seem to enjoy music in the company of 10,000 people so I headed off to the Black Sheep Stage to get an early seat for Konono No. 1. As it happened, Aurelio Martinez was still dancing his way through his energetic, booty-shaking set.



Many have raved about Konono No. 1's album; and they were definitely one of the festival's buzz bands. The crowd was enthusiastic. I enjoyed them too, but I wasn't nearly as blown away as some folks were, either on CD or live.



After about 45 minutes I snuck away to see Mofro. I've always been a huge fan - I love their Lochloosa album and raved about it on pennyblackmusic.com and really enjoyed their live performance at last year's Bluesfest.



I have to say I enjoyed the half hour of their set I saw a great deal ... I should have skipped on Konono No. 1 earlier.