The Barney Danson Theatre is a tricky venue. Tucked away from the rest of the festival, isolated and indoors, the audience can either feel like they’re in on a wonderful secret or like they’re missing out on all the fun.
When I saw Tara Holloway at the Barney Danson on day two, her band drowned out her voice. She still gave a solid performance—bolstered by a wonderful surprise visit from China Doll—but I thought the venue didn’t quite complement her country-rock style.
For singer-songwriter Kaleigh Watts, however, this was not the case. The recent Carleton grad commanded the room with a hauntingly lovely voice and ambient soundscapes.
Watts released a collection of songs called Smoke Lake earlier this year. The songs were recorded at a cottage in Algonquin Park. For her Bluesfest performance, Watts literally brought Smoke Lake to the stage—recordings of birdsong and rain from the cottage were used in the background of several songs. While the bulk of her music has a very Laura Marling folk-rock vibe, Watts brought variety to her performance with a double bass accompanied jazz piece and a track that made impressive use of looping. Her songs are interesting lyrically, too: mournful, introspective and mysterious. She’s a versatile artist and it will be exciting to see what she does next.
Then came something completely different. I stumbled out of the Watts concert only to find myself caught up in a throng of screaming Marianas Trench fans. Marianas Trench is still together, you say? Yes, they are apparently, and after 15 years Josh Ramsay (who’s name I admittedly had to Google) still has quite a lot of manic rock star energy. It was fun to observe from afar as he swaggered into the audience to be caressed by a swarm of adoring fans.
The Vancouver pop-rock band blasted expertly through earworm after well-harmonized earworm with impressive kick and brio. The band premiered some new songs from an upcoming album as well—no doubt I will hear them on the radio someday and experience inexplicable deja-vu.
I retreated back to Barney Danson to finish off the night with Parker Millsap, an Oklahoma-born artist with his own brand of bluesy Americana. Millsap performed plenty of original material while also visiting the occasional classic. A highlight of my night was watching him scream out a very fun rendition of the Hesitation Blues. Millsap has an impressively agile voice—he can wail like a banshee but also tone it down for sweeter, gentler folk ballads. His songs are shot through with black humor—“Old Time Religion” is the tale of a very reverent Christian serial killer, and the rollicking “Quite Contrary” is about out of work nursery rhyme characters who become meth dealers and prostitutes.
Millsap finished the night by graciously encouraging his audience to attend the Kanye West concert before rushing out to catch part of it himself. So ended day three of Bluesfest.
