Singing the Blues

For the past week or so, I have been actively working at the Ottawa Bluesfest, asking random participants a series of simple questions with reguards to their involvement in the Festival.

It was a fairly easy and pleasant job. The surveys took less than a minute to complete, I got to spend some time outdoors, I got a free pass to the festival on top of a paycheck, and I got to listen to some pretty good music.

I discovered a couple of groups that I enjoyed and knew nothing about: Feist (which not knowing her while roaming among her fans was a big sacrilege), Michael Franti, The New Amsterdams and Prosper (a wicked Gospel group that made me want to go to church if that's what they played in there).

One thing that would come up again and again though was that for a festival called Bluesfest, there wasn't much Blues going on.

Case in point, Nelly Furtado and Rihanna. Now I would have loved to have been around for the Nelly Furtado concert (mostly because she preceded Live), however I was in Toronto at the time. I did stick around for Rihanna though.

Now I will say this, the girl is pretty, has a decent voice (and she didn't lipsync as much as the guy with the worst pick-up line in the world would like to have you believe), and some catchy dance tunes. Unfortunately I have never seen a least pationate "artist" in my life. Since she was on the main stage, you could see her up close on the giant television screens. There's nothing more unattractive than a completely vacant and emotionless face trying to "move you" with her "music".

Dear Rihanna, you should have followed me to the next stage over where Kathleen Edwards was playing so you could see what a real artist looks like.

All in all, my supervisor was happy with my work and asked me if I'd want to do it again next year. He also said that I would probably be able to get a couple free tickets so that I could bring a friend.

Start being nice to me, people!