After I saw the Dice Cubes last Friday at the SpringFest, Margarit finally arrived in town. She was able to join in and see some of the bands. Hailey checked out quite a few of the acts with us, over much of the weekend. Anna made it out to a couple on Friday night, and Helena wasn't all that interested.
The second act I saw was a solo act... Matt Blais. The festival program describes him as follows... Matt Blais is a rock 'n' roll troubadour who's career spans a decade of quality releases and dedicated touring. Blais plays modern roots music with a foundation of candid songwriting. His performances are Springsteen-esque in both stage presence and songwriting ability, his raspy vocals and powerful harmonica creating rich layers or excitement and social commentary.
I seem to recall that Margarit missed most or all of Matt's performance, but arrived in time to see the next guy. Robert Burton Hubele is a steel guitar player that was playing as a duo, with a electric bassist accompanying him. He was a great guitarist, and the show was good... but not quite as good as I had hoped. The program described him as follows...
The Robert Burton Hubele Duo plays story driven blues/country/jazz/pop with a bit of humor, on electric guitar and slide dobro. Robert's music is original jazzy blues and country. His warm, deep dynamic voice and polished delivery of originals and standards entrall his audiences. Robert's world view is of love and harmony are all.
At this point we left the community hall and headed back across the street to the Schoolhouse. There was a duo coming up at 9:30 that we really wanted to see. Once we got back to the Schoolhouse we caught the end of a set by Justine Vandergrift. For some reason she didn't' make our checklist and we were disappointed that we missed most of her show. We both liked her better than the steel guitar guy that was playing across the street. She even threw me a bit of a smile when she saw that I was photographing her. The program described her as follows...
Justine Vandergrift's clear, rich voice and finely tuned song-craft bespeak an affinity with the likes of Patty Griffin, Bonnie Raitt and Sarah Harmer, but her own brand of country soul has deeper roots than that, ones that dig into the hymns and folk songs of her central Alberta youth. [Lacombe I think...?]
No comments:
Post a Comment