Bluesfest Highs and Lows.

- It's Bluesfest time in Ottawa and though I didn't get a full pass, this year I did get a weekend pass for the weekend that just ended. The fun for me has always been going to see bands I have never heard of before and seeing them put on a great show. I knew George Thorogood and The White Stripes would be good and they were (actually, I was pleasantly surprised because the White Stripes were great when I thought they would be pretty average).

Some of the acts I didn't know but thoroughly enjoyed were Janiva Magness, Manu Chao, Tyler Kealy (a local with a regular gig at Fat Tuesday's in the market) and Ukrainia, an Ottawa band that sings in Ukrainian and comes complete with traditional Ukrainian dancers that just lit up the stage and the crowd.

The musical lowlight had to be Bomb Squad whose lead singer, apparently an American Idol finalist named Brenna Gethers, was just awful. Somebody needs to tell young singers that singly loudly does not overcome a terrible voice, it really only makes it worse.

The best highlight though was speaking to an old coug in line behind me at the autograph tent who told me, without any provocation, that she had slept with every member of Zeppelin in 1980 and went down on Thorogood in '83. The romantic in me wants to believe she really did.