Bluesfest 2011 review sort of (I'm not reviewing the lot, obviously..)

....80,000 tickets they sold this year, people.
Hubby says, well what do you expect; they scored some pretty huge names.
True, true- all the same, at times I felt as if I was at the Royal Melbourne Show, not a music festival. Wacking huge enormous tented food halls full of food stalls. Bit like shopping mall food courts under tents. Squillions of market stalls selling henna tattoos and gumboots. Everything you would want from a festival; just BIGGER. Havent been to Bluesfest in 10 years and man, it's grown.I love a good festival, but you're more likely to find me at Womad or the National Folk Festival in Canberra than you'll find me at the Big Day Out. So Bluesfest this year was a lot bigger than my usual yearly festivus experience. And smokers! Loads more smokers at Bluesfest than at folk or world music dos...just smelly unwacky baccy (oh, green stuff was around, but not as intrusive..)
ALL THE SAME...
IT WAS GREAT!

Highlights (in no particular order):

- Michelle Shocked: wasnt expecting to get excited about Michelle Shocked. She was wonderful. She's such an energetic, positive story teller; moved me to tears. If she tours Melbourne again I will get tix. She also got the crowd singing along to 'Blowing in the Wind', which was a lot more than Dylan bothered doing. more of that later..
- Irma Thomas: effortless soul. One scary moment that will be covered later...
- Blind Boys of Alabama: marvellous gospel combined with some wacky theatricals
- BB and the Blues Shacks: no, not BB King; I missed him coz we didnt have tix for the Friday. BB and the Blues Shacks are a German swinging blues band that got me dancin...
- Jethro Tull: Ian Anderson is still hopping on one foot and playing flute whilst his eyes bulge out of his head and threaten to explode.

Additional highlight:
- They had a creche for kids over 4 1/2! You could drop them off for up to 2 hours at a time! Kid A loved it! So did we!

Lowlights:
- To whoever had the bright idea of programming Jethro Tull and Bob Dylan simultaneously, I say Get Stuffed. We went to Tull. I stuck my head in a few times over at Dylan to get a sense of what I was missing. Which was:
- Bob Dylan: hates people looking at him. So whilst he was playing he wouldnt allow them to use the large screen to project the performance out to people who couldnt see (approx 70/80% of the audience). So all anyone over at the Dylan stage saw was a few indiscriminate blobs wandering around on stage whilst one of the blobs who might have been Dylan warbled something incomprehensible. i heard part of Highway 61. That was enough. he didnt do anything singalongish. Would have been too sociable.
-Irma Thomas: now, this isnt her fault. Irma Thomas is brilliant. But you know that Tina Turner single 'Simply the Best'? The one still played on radio daily on some stations? It was Irma's single first; 'parently she was nominated for a grammy for it then Tina took it to the level of bogan middle aged popularity it enjoys today . But when Irma sang it at the festival, her entire mainly middle aged audience punched the air and sang along. Which was for a few minutes, very confronting.

Additionally: This might sound just too too whingey, but at most of the festivals I go to nowadays there's a kids festival programme. There was a little street theatre which was great, but no kids festival. Just the creche, which I loved loved LOVED. But I would have liked the kids to have programming for them as well...

Finally: Whilst hubby was cuddling and playing with toddly/bubby, some tripper came up to him with tears in his eyes and thanked him for holding our baby on high. Seems the guy had seen Bubby being held up and realised with it being Easter and all, that Bubby symbolised the resurrection of the blues. Amen brother....