As far as music festivals go, Burnaby’s Blues & Roots Festival is a gem and a polished one at that.
At 15 years in the making, it’s no surprise that the day-long festival held at Burnaby’s picturesque Deer Lake Park is a well-organized affair that goes off without many hitches.
Unlike other prolific, local music festivals of 2014, Saturday’s concert sported a refreshing lack of faux flower crowns and neon wayfarer sunglasses — instead concert goers at the event were met with varying forms of blues music, all the way from authentic back-porch blues to rockin’ rock-a-billy to contemporary rock.
Steve Kozak kicked off the festival’s opening, his brand of blues providing an even-tempoed gallop as some set up chairs and blankets at the main stage and others perused the Blues Market for locally made soaps, threads and jewelry.
The beer garden didn’t lack for business in its opening hours, either. Kozak’s contemporary, easy-listening tunes eased festivalgoers into their day.
Standing in stark contrast to Kozak and his band, however, were Rich Hope and his Evil Doers.
If this year’s Blues & Roots fest needed a wake-up call, Hope and his Evil Doers were it. The dirty boogie blues duo — made up of singer-guitarist Hope and drummer Adrian Mack — have enough stage presence for a full ensemble, but the boys manage to command the audience just fine as a two-piece.
Within a few songs, the twosome drew much of the crowd to the festival’s Westwood Stage for a boogie. Notable songs were the gritty “La Iguana” and the high-energy “Let’s jump around some”, a tribute to Mack’s record collection as Hope mused to the crowd.
Back on the main stage was the Harpoonist and the Axe Murderer, another Vancouver-based duo, but unlike Hope and Mack, band members Shawn Hall and Matthew Rogers were joined by a few other players to round out the band’s old-school blues gospel sound.
“Act your age” had the main stage audience participating whole-heartedly as fans belted out lyrics to the song and clapped along with the rhythm.
Over at the festival’s Garden Stage, it was a whole different story. Just after 3 p.m., American blues musician Blind Boy Paxton started tinkering on his acoustic guitar. Because the multi-instrumentalist’s set was so quiet, many jammed in close to the stage to hear Paxton rehearse his old-time inspired ditties, ultimately making for an intimate musical experience.
Paxton charmed the audience with his 1930s-style, back-porch blues, making the crowd giggle at tongue-in-cheek lyrics that flirted with misogyny like, “nothing makes you feel so low as when an ugly woman tells you no.” The singer impressively switched between playing the guitar, banjo, harmonica, fiddle and piano before saying goodbye to his newfound fans.
The young, hip crowd — many of whom might have attended Pemberton Festival earlier this year — stayed at the stage for indie blues-rock musician Shakey Graves.
The Texas gent’s set was off to a rocky start with a few sound hiccups that interrupted his first song. After a few tunes, he had the crowd, which mostly consisted of young, women who gathered at the side of the stage, dancing and swaying to his electrified vagabond folk.
The singer’s makeshift kick-drum suitcase, of course, was a highlight of the performance.
After 5:30 p.m., all traffic was relocated to the main stage, where Bettye LaVette, Matt Andersen and the Mellotones and headliners Big Sugar capped off the day’s activities.
With tunes strangely reminiscent of The Band, it came as no surprise that Andersen and crew decided to “dig into the old Canadian songbook” to play a cover of “Ophelia” to the diverse crowd, which included mid-20s couples, young families and blues veterans.
Andersen showed off his vocal range before ending his set on “With a little help from my friends” by The Beatles.
Big Sugar took the stage just after sunset, pumping out fan favourites from their ‘90s hey-day like “Diggin’ a hole”, “Better get used to it” and “Turn the lights on”.
Few stayed until the festival’s bitter end, as beer gardens closed just after 8 p.m., but with no overdoses or violence to report by end of day, it can be said that Burnaby’s Blues & Roots festival was the best-run affair in this year’s festival circuit.
