upbeatThere were a couple of acts that I wanted to check out, and Kathy and SteveB agreed to attend the shows with me last night. The first show started at 6:00 pm, and featured Amanda Rheaume taking the stage. She can best be summed up as playing punchy rock balladry with a blues feel to it, and I certainly enjoyed her performance along with that of her band, despite the heavy bursts of downpour and all. Glad I took my brolly with me. I really had a good time watching her perform, and her voice and piano work was just...superb.
The second show that I got to see was Jeff Beck. Jeff Beck has been around on the music scene for a long time, and his guitar work is well, legendary. That said, his 23-year-old bassist for the show, Tal Wilkenfield, stole the show completely with her rhythmic jazz chops and her really superb lead work when given the chance. SteveB, Kathy, and I didn't have a very good view of the stage. because we had to come from a different stage from the Amanda Rheaume performance to see Beck, but it's really all about the music, you know. And SteveB brought the set of binoculars that gave us a somewhat better "view" at times of the performance! :)
There was so much other stuff going on at the Bluesfest this first night, but one really couldn't see it all, but I had a good time. The three of us went from there to a Harvey's for a later-than-usual supper, and everything was good. It was well after 11:30 pm when I got back to the house, and my head was still spinning from the sights and sounds when I finally dropped off to sleep around 1:00 am or so.
Like I said, I'm not going to see a whole bunch of acts and performances at Bluesfest this year, but these two were folks that I had really wanted to see. And it was *good*!