[Harp-L] The North Atlantic Blues Festival

[rainbowjimmy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Survived a 2 day blues marathon, saw close to 20 bands. 3.25 had harp. 2 had
good harp.

Rockland Maine is a beautiful place. The festival is right on the harbor, and
several of the bars are either by or in the water (The Monhegan is a
bar/ferry). Harp highlights. Well, Kim Wilson played. Wow. Didn't care for the
Thunderbirds, they sounded like a generic bar band, but Kim could play. Tone to
die for. Duke and the Drivers (talk about a flash from the past) had a little
harp (hence the .25). Great band, not even close to blues. I thought if Kim
joined forces with the Drivers you'd have the best party band in the universe.
The Sensations played at the Mongegan. Their harp player was competent. That
means there was nothing wrong with his playing but he wasn't Kim Wilson (who
is?). To be fair, the night was young, the band was just warming up, but with
15 bars playing live music, we couldn't stick around too long.We closed out the
night with the Gate Street Band. Great harp, great band, definite party oriented
bar band but they do the showmanship so well.

Too many Stratocasters playing Kansas City too long and too fast. The beat
seemed more rock than blues (ahead of the beat instead of behind), the
influence more Clapton and Jeff Beck than Muddy.No acoustic blues, no Piedmont,
very little of the Louis Armstrong 20s era blues (Pinetop did a little) no John
Lee Hooker, very little of the Smokestack Lightning one riff over and over
stuff.Rained all Saturday. Still, some stellar musicians, beautiful scenery,
the whole weekend went through flawlessly, no fights, no crazy drunken rowdies
excellent food.

If you check the lineup, factor in the scenery, the all night pub crawl and
usually one or more big name harp players, the North Atlantic Blues Festival is
one of the baest in the country. Plan to come up next year.

Rainbow Jimmy
http://www.spaceanimals.com
http://www.soundclick.com/theelectricstarlightspaceanimals.htm