Roberta Bondar
It’s fitting the first band who played Saturday afternoon shares the same name as Canada’s first female astronaut. Women played a huge part of Saturday’s lineup, from headliner Bjork to Stars, Austra and Imaginary Cities to name a few.
The four piece Ottawa band started the set by cranking some good ol’ guitar fuzz from the main stage. The experimental noise band blasted lo-fi tunes built around tight instrumental chaos and Lidija Rozitis’ vocals that had people tapping their feet in the heat.
A personal highlight was when the band announced they had tapes for sale in which an older couple in front of me in unison said “tapes?!?!?!?” in a way that justifies the use of that many exclamation points and question marks.
Half Moon Run
One of Mixtape’s Mix Picks, I checked out the Montreal three-piece band to see what all the hype is about. The band is Mumford & Sons approved and album reviewers love to throw in the name Radiohead as a comparison. Between the magnetic personalities and melodic indie pop-rock songs with harmonizing vocals it’s easy to see why the group has been creating so much buzz. “Call Me In The Afternoon” was well received by the crowd who sang along with the catchy song. The band even came out for a rare afternoon encore for two bonus songs including a cover of “Vampire” by Vancouver’s Pink Mountaintops.
Austra
Wearing overall shorts featuring iconic cartoon Betty Boop on the front, large and round blue sunglasses and big heart earrings, it was hard to keep your eyes off of Austra’s frontwoman Katie Stelmanis. She spent the entire set moving across the stage, standing on the edge with hand motions, seemingly pulling energy from the audience and transferring it into powerful vocals. She would return to her synth keyboard at times to add to the layers of instrumentation.
With the band’s latest album Olympia just under a month old, it was no surprise the setlist was dominated by tracks from the album. Former Spiral Beach bassist Dorian Wolf seemed to have fun laying down danceable rhythms along with Maya Postepski (drums). The synths also made dancing easy. At some points there were three synths creating a giant indie electronica sound.
The set was capped with familiar favourites “Lose It” and “Feel It Break” from Feel It Break.
Stars
It was kind of great being able to see Torquil Campbell of Stars on stage and Parliament Hill in the distant background at the exact same time. Campbell is never one to shy away from political statements and rants at concerts and through song. “This one’s for you Stevie. Stevie! Stevie! Stevie!,” Campbell said with passion and vile as the band started to play “A Song Is A Weapon”. Later on he made reference to “the smell like sulfer from behind Parliament Hill” with an awkward mix of cheers and jeers from the crowd.
The band were in fine form, with Torq Campbell running all over the stage, sweaty and blood vessels looking like they were going to explode in his face as he intensely sang and interacted with the crowd. Guitarist and singer Amy Millan was also in had the crowd on a string, encouraging them to sing along and participate as she sang and rocked out on guitar. Adding to the magic was the sun setting as the band played what Campbell called the “festival golden hour”. During the middle of a song, he told the audience to turn around and say goodbye to the sun as it disappeared for the day.
The band played with a large image of the Expo 67 buildings that are on the cover of The North, the bands most recent album that dominated the setlist. The fronts of the speakers on stage also featured cropped sections of the covers, a different look from the band that spent the past few tours constantly throwing roses out into the crowd.
Both Campbell and Millan expressed how excited they were to see the headlining Bjork later in the night rushing off the stage to end the set before coming out for an encore since they had eight minutes left in their time slot.
The way the band interacted with the audience, getting them to sing along and jump seemingly at will made this one of the best shows of Bluesfest.
I am noticing the distinct lack of reference to Palm Bay. Not sure how this very crucial element to the day’s success could be forgotten. hahaha