by: Pepa Wolfe
Monday was another delightful mix of new discoveries and big names, with a good dose of puppetry and performance art thrown in.
The day saw the some rocking blues with plenty of keys down at the Crossroads tent as German outfit BB & the Blues Shacks charmed the crowd. Physically dynamic and looking sharp, BB and his boys really ramped up the audience participation. It was an onstage/offstage love-in, complete with dancing girls on stilts.
Continue reading Bluesfest 2011 – Day Five, Featuring: Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello & The Imposters, BB & the Blues Shacks, and the Old Spice Boys. – Live Review
Musical legacies are fickle beasts. For the privileged few, early bravado can lead to a lifetime of open doors and opportunities; for most, thorough, their own massive shoes are rarely filled again, leaving a life of painfully striving either to attain the same heights, or failing to convince the world that there’s more to give. For those at the pinnacle, the ones whose exploits drew a definite line with which others would measure themselves, this is arguably even more acute: audiences are liable to bay for more brilliance, and are vocally deflated when their lofty expectations are not met (take, for example, the expectation of larger-than-myth Bob Dylan, whose audience is rudimentary brought down to earth every time his never-ending tour juggernaut rolls through town).
It was Easter Sunday, the sun was shining over Bluesfest and the Crossroads tent was gearing up to celebrate with a solid block of gospel, soul and blues, kicked off by the enigmatic, effervescent powerhouse Mavis Staples and Her Band.
Known for catchy tunes, clever lyrics, playfully sung narratives and an outstanding energy, The Wombats played to a sold out Tivoli in Brisbane on Thursday night, giving their all to make it a night to remember for the fans attending.
Celebrated actor and director turned musician Tim Robbins, touring Australia on the back of his debut CD with the Rogues Gallery Band, brought a mixture of blues, country and a dash of sing-a-long to the Jambalaya tent on Saturday. Robbins, on guitar and vocals, seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, rumbling through Folsom Prison Blues before festival superstar and all-round maestro Trombone Shorty joined the Rogues for “Oh Mary Don’t You Weep”. A change of tempo and “Crush On You”, inspired by the young victim of a hate crime, demonstrated a simple approach, buoyed by beautiful instrumentation, as was a gorgeous, measured cover of Tom Waits’ “All The World Is Green”. Featuring the sweet wail and wallow of a musical saw over vocal harmonies, it was easily the high point of their set.
Despite dismal forecasts, the weather held out for music lovers as they descended onto the Tyagarah Tea Tree Farm in Byron Bay, the new site for Australia’s premiere Blues and Roots Music Festival. Now extended to cover six days, campers and eager punters slowly edged their way into the grounds, with staff and volunteers doing their best to ensure that parking, setup and entry was relatively painless. The wet grounds were eclipsed by the buzz of excitement, a busy energy punctuating the usually laidback Byron feel. 
I headed to Sparkadia’s show on Friday April 8 at the Hi Fi in Brisbane with much the same feeling of trepidation that I had on hearing that the band was releasing a new album in March this year. Technically, I knew that the songs on the record were superb, just as I knew that the hype building about the The Great Impression tour and Sparkadia’s new live show had to mean something. I was troubled, though, by clear memories of a gig on the eighteenth of September in 2008 that had changed the way I viewed live music and made me worried that there was only disappointment to come by way of comparison.
