Day four of Bluesfest was a day of goodbyes for Hat Fitz and Cara. They bid farewell to Canada with a boisterous blues-rock performance on the Monster Stage.
I quite enjoyed their whole shtick. He’s a bearded Australian bushman with a resonator guitar and a gravelly voice. She’s a talented Irish singer and drummer, who looked fabulous in a bright red fascinator. Together they are the winners of my own personal “best accents of Bluesfest” award. Along with their music they performed their marriage onstage, cracking jokes about their sex life and flirting in between songs. It was all rather charming.
The duo played a combination of classic and original blues songs, including a rousing rendition of Robert Wilkins’ “That’s No Way to Get Along.” Cara Robinson kept the energy up throughout, even getting up from the drum set at one point to play the flute and dance. Her voice is powerful enough to match her husband’s deep bushman yodel and hearing them attack blues classics together was a perfect way to spend a hot summer evening.
The most coherent song lyrics—“you gotta love,” “try harder,” and “you got power,”—might not have been particularly original, but every word was delivered with such grit and earnestness that I really believed them. I do got power. Good fun indeed.
