On a clear and beautiful Friday evening revelers rejuvenated themselves as they traversed a bridge in time and danced like crazy to Lance Anderson and his troupe of talented musicians re-enacting the magic of Woodstock on its 50th anniversary.
They started off with a Richie Havens song “Freedom”, bringing back memories of the 60s when everyone was looking for freedom that would taste of reality but instead found that “freedom’s just another word”. They then continued “up the country where water tastes like wine” with a song from Canned Heat.
They performed many songs from the first 3 LP set of Woodstock and when they hit morning maniac music with Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love”, the crowd couldn’t control themselves as they broke into wild frenzied dancing , singing along with the musicians. It was a sight to see as even people with canes and aching backs stood up to shake a leg! There was a resounding standing ovation!
Energized by the feedback, the band kept up the tempo as they took everyone higher by making them dance to music from Sly and the family Stone before getting everybody to sacrifice their souls to rock as the slammed into Santana’s “Soul Sacrifice”.
Of course no tribute to Woodstock can go without doing a couple of tunes from Canadian musicians who were there. “The Weight” by the group simply known as The Band had many reminisce about the time when the standard reply to “how you doin?” was the line from that song “man, I’m feeling just about half past dead!” A song from Blood Sweat and Tears followed and made everyone feel so very happy.
There were plenty of songs from several other artists including Joe Cocker’s legendary rendition of The Beatles’ “With a li’l help from me friends”, “Pinball Wizard” by The Who, Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxey Lady” and “Suite , Judy Blue Eyes” by Crosby , Stills and Nash .Their encore number was the song “Woodstock” written by Canadian Joni Mitchell.
The Kitchener Blues Festival (KBF) actually started on Thursday Aug 8 with Misty Blues opening up for Canada’s pride Tom Cochrane and Red Rider who regaled the crowd with their repertoire of songs and stories of life in Canada and dreams of being bigger than the Beatles. Needless to say Tom had the public singing with him on his international hit, “Life is a Highway!”
On Friday besides the Woodstock tribute there were many other acts that took place al fresco on three different stages not too far from each other. There was a band from Finland headed by vocalist and guitarist extraordinaire Erja Lyytinen, that wowed the audience!
Saturday saw Kim Mitchell and many others do their rock and roll duty even as Bill Durst knocked the crowds out with his hard driving blues.
Sunday, Aug 11, started early at 10.30 am with Gospel songs from Lance Anderson and company, who also ended the festival that evening with another amazing band.
Besides stunning events out in the open including stages for children, KBF also had several bands performing in bars and pubs and is one of Canada’s premier blues festivals bringing in musicians from all over the world.
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