What's up my Negus?

So, kids, a Bluesfest review. How do I do it? I mean, the Big Day Out is easy – spiky haired shirtless wankers, orange girls who need to eat more, emos who need to eat less, all poncing about in the burning sun occasionally glancing at the stage – festival tragics, one and all. Oh, there’s the occasional punter who actually came for the music – they're the ones in the corner, looking wide eyed and panicked, wondering what happened to the 90’s.

To be honest, after a disappointing Future Music Festival experience (I thought it was going to be a great dance music day – turned out to be full of boozed up, iced up wankers too), I was a little scared Bluesfest might have been the same.

I did not reckon on the power of old people – sorry, oldER.

Bloody brilliant, it was.

Three days of mud, drizzling rain, beer and blues (and roots, and modern folk, and rock, and neo-folk, and arguments about what was what), and only scatterings of wankers. Like those stupid silver cake decorations that break your teeth – a bit annoying, but you can always flick them off.

One discordant note – the whingeing locals of Byron who seem content to gouge the tourists over Easter, but would prefer they not come.

So I might just post a list, being quite lazy. I’ve gone through the timetable to write down everything we saw a bit of.

Amos Lee – Very good. A bit smooth, although the set he played was pretty bluesy, due to the setting, I guess. (On the strength of this the Mangoes bought a double album which turned out to bit a lot more poppy). Sort of your standard American city soft blues rock stuff, a bit whiny, but good. Download some Go and purchase a cd today.

Bo Diddley – Great to see him, he’s the same age as my grandma, but I think she’s more genki than him. The music was good – standard rock blues stuff. Personally, a little to 50’s pop for me, but then, that was all him anyway, wasn’t it? He seems to getting a bit old – I saw him at Bluesfest two years ago and he was a bit more lively then. Still, great show.

Eric Burdon and the Animal(s) – One for the parentals, really. He was a bit like an aging rocker with a bunch of session musos – hang on, there was one original band member. Well, maybe, but there was certainly an old dude, with grey hair in a pony tail, on the keys. The show was good, though, because everyone knew all the songs, As expected, House of the Rising Sun brought the house down. Listening to a record I borrowed from the parentals I realised he had lost all of his edge.

Eugene ‘Hideaway’ Bridges – Wow, the man needs to be paying royalties to BB King! Fantastic guitarist, he was King with a pony tail. He even played a black Gibson 335 (which he was plugging shamelessly during the set – Gibson was a major sponsor of the Bluesfest, I gather).

Lucky I love BB King then. Fantastic electric blues show, awesome guitar playing.

Fred Eaglesmith - Redneck rocker, Steve Earle without the heroin, and from Canada – where your neck’s just as red but frozen solid. Great country blues stuff, with some fantastic crowd interaction. One of the highlights. He provided the best quote of the weekend - “You got a lot of hippies in Byron,” he murmurs, pausing for effect, “I fuckin’ hate hippies!” – thunderous applause.

“I been on that many folk festivals, all this fuckin’ patchouli. Y’all got patchouli down here? Tried to get a workers compensation claim – fuckin’ lungs filled up with patchouli, can’t breathe right.” Absolute gold.

He also had a nice word to say about our PM – “In Canada we have a Howard – it’s a rotary Ho.”

Kieran Kane, Kevin Welch & Fats Kaplan – Nice set. A bunch of middle aged dudes sitting down playing acoustic country blues stuff, tending more towards country, I guess.

Kill Devil Hills – Not bad, but not great. Australian mob, I think, almost hillbilly blues – the drummer was the best performer.

The Fumes – One of my personal highlights. Fantastic! Go out and buy their album, I did. Don’t download it, either. If you listen to JJJ you would have heard a couple of their songs. Great Aussie Blues Rock, a real dirty sound. Electric slide with great vocals.

John Butler Trio – Obviously, the set was mega packed, and sucked in the wankers as well. I don’t want to sound like a tosser (but I will) but the first time I saw JBT it was me and about a hundred other people, crammed into the backroom at Beachcombers in Darwin. They played for a good two and a half hours, then did a half hour encore. Since then I’ve seen them a fair few times, each time the gigs getting progressively larger. I know it’s a good thing that more people are listening to his music, especially as he has a lot of good stuff to say, but the crowd was too big to get a good feel for the music. And the same goes for…

…Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals– Although I’d not seen him live before, so that was good. There were a couple of songs where I danced about in the pouring rain, sans emergency poncho, in a true festival experience. Great stuff.

Xavier Rudd – Not bad, although he’s to John Butler what Disney is Warner Brother cartoons.

Kasey Chambers – I have never liked her stuff, she’s far too whingy, but I have to admit she played a good show for a woman as fat as she was (she may have been pregnant :)). Best bit – Bernald Powderfinger does a surprise guest appearance and the parentals ask “Who the hell is that bloke?”

Paul Kelly – What can I say? Awesome. Just as packed as some of the others, but we got a good spot. Knew all the songs, the whole crowd singing along. He played How to make Gravy, I swear I got goosebumps.

And he was introduced by George Negus! All good. (Incidentally, I saw a tshirt with a picture of George Negus on it wearing lots of bling – Caption: What’s up, my Negus.)

Vanessa Amorosi – I saw a bit, so I have to list her. What the hell was she doing there? Absolute rubbish. I had thought there was a chance. At the last Bluesfest I went to they actually had Joel Turner and the Modern Day Poets playing – you know, those clowns from Idol that did the beatboxing – and they surprised everyone with a decent blues set.

Not this time. Shite.

With a capital I.

Taj Mahal – Awesome. Risqué lyrics, rocking blues tunes, great atmosphere.

Chris Smither – Solo acoustic blues stuff, a little bit of country folk in the mix. A nice, middle of the afternoon set.

Imperial Crowns – A mix between Aerosmith and a pub band – shite.

Normie Rowe – What the f…? Shite, again. His only shining moment was when he clocked Ron Casey on Midday.

Missy Higgins - I first saw her when she supported JBT once and she was pretty good. Now she is far too whingy – didn’t watch much of her set. It was okay.

The Waifs – I thought they were great, the parentals didn’t agree.

Bonnie Raitt – Fantastic. She put on a great show, and the crowd really got into it.

Ash Grunwald – I’ve seen him a couple of times before, the last time was at the Prince of Wales in Melbourne. It was so smoky that we literally couldn’t see the stage, or breathe. So we left early.

This time it was great. He puts on a great show, one man band style. Or at least a man with a guitar and a couple of drums.

I highly recommend getting an album.

Oh crap, there’s heaps more, well a few anyway, but I’m all done.

Suffice to say it was a fantastic weekend.

Oh, you missed out?

Sucks to be you.

I’ll put some photos up a bit later – turns out we’ve been shaped and they take a while to upload.

Cheers