Bluesfest Day 1: Wild, Rainy and Impressive

This must be what Woodstock felt like.

Bluesfest returned to Ottawa after a one-year hiatus under stormy, muddy conditions, as the weather fluctuated from nearly disastrous to merely glum. Two acoustic openers, Lauryn Macfarlane and Aysanabee, got things started under more mild weather. Then the show went electric with Tokyo Police Club and especially Half Moon Run, as the weather turned.

Macfarlane ended up doing a bit of “song-and-story”, as she put it, talking a bit about her background and music between each piece later in her set. She performed a variety of songs about relationships like her single “Friendly”, and her upbringing in rural Peterborough, on songs like “Nowhere Town”. She demonstrated an impressive vocal range, and came with a good story: about five years ago, she described playing on a side event at Bluesfest, and being told there that she’d return to Bluesfest to play under her own name one day. And here she was.

It was hard not to think about how long it’s been since some of us came together for a concert like this, as she introduced her cover of The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand”. “Hopefully one day soon,” she added.

She struggled, understandably, to keep her guitar in tune despite the intensely humid weather. The fog machine tried gamely to generate some ambience, despite the winds blowing it away.

Next up was Aysanabe, a Cree fellow with a gift for two-handed tapping. He demonstrated an impressive vocal range, and amplified that effect by harmonizing with his voice through loop pedals. He sang songs about his personal history, such as his talks with a relative who experienced Canada’s residential school system, and a story about wanting to live when he fell through the ice while snowshoeing. “Last Ocean” was a highlight, with the tapping solo sounding almost classical, as if those notes would normally be played on a harpischord.

As the rain continued, on-site staff began covering unused instruments and amplifiers with tarps. Maybe “Mother Nature is telling us to clean up our act,” Aysanabe mused.

As darkness finally started to fall, and the rain gave us false hope by lightening somewhat, Tokyo Police Club took the stage. The key word with this band is “comfort”–the band’s music is full of warm chord progressions backed by tight percussion and catchy riffs. “Favourite Colour” featured the song’s tender guitar solo and punchy chorus; “Bambi” featured the same perfect synth hook many of us have heard on the radio, played well. Lead singer and bassist Dave Monks, dressed a bit like a college student, sang with a smile for most of the night, but you didn’t need to see him to know that–you could hear it in his voice.

I used to think that Tokyo Police Club had wasted some of their potential. Songs from their first two EPs, represented here by the hit “Nature of the Experiment”, had an unusual punky intensity that their first album didn’t deliver on. But seeing them live, the band clearly developed a talent for these longer songs, and didn’t lose their ear for a hook.

Then Half Moon Run came on, after a few minutes of reasonable delays, and the heavens opened up. The band played their first three tracks under some of the heaviest rainfall I’ve ever seen, most of it coming down from the sky and hitting the stage at a 20-degree angle. The audience cheered passionately, sensing that the show was in danger, although they didn’t jump around in the mud as much as they would on drier days.

Staff came and went onstage with unusual regularity, covering all the keyboards and electronics with tarps and the occasional towel, as lead singer and guitarist Devon Portielje mused mid-song about the distracting possibility that their instruments could electrocute them. The band huddled with staff onstage after the first song, and said they’d been told to pause the show for a while, but had decided to keep going for another song. These first tracks opened with songs played on guitar with no keyboard, possibly not by choice, as most electronics could not easily be uncovered.

By the third song, the rain was down to about 80% intensity–still a remarkable downpour, but enough for multi-instrumentalist Isaac Symonds to try playing the piano. The keyboard’s right side was uncovered for half of the second song, and the crowd got to learn if it still worked at the same time the band did. “I hope this works, because it’s been eighteen months since our last show, and I’ll be f***ed if I’m stepping down!” He stated, to powerful cheers. (I might be a word or two off on that quote. I’d have typed it down on my phone, but there was a real danger that the rain would get into it if I opened my jacket.)

Thankfully the electronics continued to work, and no one was electrocuted, because it was a wild performance. Every instrument shone with water droplets; seeing the water spray off of the floor tom when Portielje joined in on the drums was a remarkable visual. The drummer was pressing buttons on synth pads while they were still covered with tarps. And the string quartet that joined them at some points could be seen wiping off their violins and violas between songs, and eventually mid-song too.

It was an uncommon test of band versus nature, and Half Moon Run passed. So they played music, which happened to be pretty good.

The band has unusual strengths, which serve them well. Portielje and Symonds vocal harmonies and guitar playing demonstrate a sense of heft, with subtle pauses that build intensity. It’s a trait that would be as noticeable at an acoustic show as it did when fleshed out with all these thankfully-functional instruments. There are a lot of other rock bands in the last decade or two with catchy beats and a knack for adding electronica to their sound (heck, a decent example of that would be Tokyo Police Club), so that ability to convey a certain weight to the basics of their songs, even before the bassy synth comes in on “Call me in the Afternoon”, is a unique strength. And the ability to pull back from those effects on certain tracks, like they did for their rain-drenched openers, or to feel at ease playing with a string quartet, gives the band a wide range of sounds.

Every twenty minutes or so, the band would restart a guitar riff, or a vocal harmony and joke about it, but no one seemed to mind. It was remarkable that they were still playing at all. They said that they’d just spent many months apart, preparing for events over video calls, just like the rest of us, lending the whole affair added gravitas. It was a remarkable display of resilience, including from the audience, most of whom stuck around through the downpour. A truly memorable start to Bluesfest, once Ottawa’s signature annual festival, and hopefully becoming annual again going forward.