Have a Summer Fling
New theatre festival offers nine shows in six venues
By Patrick Langston, The Ottawa Citizen
Sarah McVie plays the free-spirited Susan, a.k.a. Rita, in the Arts Court Production of Educating Rita. The ambitious production was made famous by the 1983 film of the same name starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters.
Sarah McVie plays the free-spirited Susan, a.k.a. Rita, in the Arts Court Production of Educating Rita. The ambitious production was made famous by the 1983 film of the same name starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters
Thanks to a summer fling, Ottawa actor Sarah McVie can breathe a little easier about her mortgage.
McVie plays the title role in Educating Rita, Willy Russell’s two-person comedy-with-a-dark-side opening today at Arts Court Theatre. The play launches Summer Fling — A Theatrical Affair!, the new performing arts festival running until Aug. 28 in downtown Ottawa. Consisting of nine shows in six venues, the festival is a joint effort between the Ottawa Arts Court Foundation and the Downtown Rideau Business Improvement Association.
For McVie, the gig means income during the summer, a normally fallow period for many in Ottawa’s professional theatre community. And since the 32-year-old recently bought a house — a brave move in a profession where bodies seriously outnumber paying roles and where McVie says she supports herself “with great difficulty” — the chance to play Rita is a good thing both financially and artistically.
Read more: Have a Summer Fling
Review: Arcade Fire plays with passion
By Lynn Saxberg, The Ottawa Citizen
Arcade Fire took to the MBNA Stage Tuesday July 13, 2010 during the 2010 Bluesfest held at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.
OTTAWA-Arcade Fire’s first full-length, headlining show in Ottawa finally took place at Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest on Tuesday night, a long overdue affair that attracted close to 30,000 people.
Believe it or not, the indie Montreal band that rose to global superstardom a few years back has only played two concerts in the nation’s capital in recent memory: a Black Sheep Inn gig in 2004 and a 2005 opening slot for U2 at Scotiabank Place.
“We’re called the Arcade Fire, we’re from Montreal, Quebec, Canada,” declared singer Win Butler early in last night’s show, just in case anyone had forgotten about them. “We don’t know any blues songs.”
No problem.
Read more: Review: Arcade Fire plays with passion
Rock generations old and young collide at Bluesfest
Flaming Lips, Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson and Metric wow large crowd of 28,000
By Lynn Saxberg, The Ottawa Citizen
Two distinct generations of music fans flocked to Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest last night, making it the biggest crowd so far of the festival.
The boomers came to see Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson, while their offspring went bonkers over Metric. In all, organizers estimated the audience at 28,000 people.
Of course, at the top of the bill was the Flaming Lips, an alt-rock band that was expected to unite fans of all ages with their homage to a landmark classic-rock album, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.
But that’s not how they started. The Oklahoma outfit began with a psychedelic interlude of noise and lights that gave frontman Wayne Coyne the time to install himself in a plastic bubble, inflate it and roll out over the first few rows of fans.
Read more: Rock generations old and young collide at Bluesfest
The Band proves to be still feelin’ good
By Lynn Saxberg, The Ottawa Citizen
OTTAWA — Bolstered by a 10-piece band, a frail but happy looking Levon Helm let us see what sort of show it would be with the first song of his concert on the Subway stage at Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest on Sunday.
It was a classic Band tune, The Shape I’m In, and although the rock elder opted out of singing, it sounded fantastic. Organist Brian Mitchell handled the vocal duties, the gravel in his voice contrasting with the upbeat organ sounds.
Stepping out with a vintage tune like that seemed a pretty good sign that the concert would be a celebration of the career of the former Band drummer, who’s now 70 and on his first major tour in many years to his latest album, Electric Dirt. In recent years, he has preferred to stay home, performing his Saturday-night Midnight Ramble concerts at his farm in Woodstock, New York.
Read more: The Band proves to be still feelin’ good
Rush pulls out all the tricks
By Chris Cobb, The Ottawa Citizen
Rush frontman Geddy Lee acknowledges the crowd on Sunday at Bluesfest. The Toronto rockers had the main stage to themselves and played a sprawling three-hour set.
It was a crowd pleaser and the crowd was pleased — ecstatically pleased in some quarters.
And unless Cisco Ottawa Blues Festival has plans to sneak some massive superstar onto this week’s line up, it will certainly be the biggest show of the 2010 festival.
It was big lights, big, ear busting sound, nifty video that registered the vintage of each song and matching video clips to complement the tunes.
And most of all, it was the biggest crowd, stretching far into the distance from the main concert bowl, ending uncomfortably close to where vintage rockers John Hiatt and Levon Helm were playing.
Read more: Rush pulls out all the tricks
Outside the spotlight, small stages still rock
Lesser-known Bluesfest acts draw hardcore fans, curious onlookers
By Patrick Langston, The Ottawa Citizen
Oregon bluesman Curtis Salgado and his band hit the Hard Rock Stage on Saturday afternoon. Kim Alessi, who was in the crowd, travelled from Buffalo with four of her friends to see Selgado at Bluesfest.
Metric and Flaming Lips may have been Saturday’s big draws at Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest, but they were far from the only game in town. Here’s a sampling of what else was cooking.
Toronto’s Down with Webster unleashed their spirited, but predictable, pop rock/hip hop on the Hard Rock Cafe stage early in the evening. The band raved about how much they loved Ottawa and Bluesfest, dropped F-bombs, and whipped fans into a frenzy of devil horn-waving and, as a security guard hovered nearby, a little crowd-surfing.
Meanwhile, on a grassy rise overlooking the stage, Ed Buller sat reading a thriller by Stephen Hunter as the music pounded below.
“I’m not a big crowd person,” the just-retired civil servant said, “but it’s a chance to hear different sorts of music. Then I buy the CD if I like it.”
Read more: Outside the spotlight, small stages still rock
Comedian Louis CK pushes the boundaries of taste
By Chris Cobb, The Ottawa Citizen
As anyone familiar with his stand-up routine knows, Louis CK is a risk taker. He pushes the bounds of taste until he feels his audience cringe and then he pushes some more.
Then he retreats, leaving everyone wondering how much more gross he can get.
And then he starts pushing the bounds again with an unsaid ‘you thought that was gross, try this.’
Louis CK – why he bothers using only the two last letters of the word is anybody’s guess — attracted a largely youngish male audience to the Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest comedy tent last night.
At around $60 a pop, the 800 tickets sold out and the buyers knew what they were in for.
Read more: Comedian Louis CK pushes the boundaries of taste
Review: Brady brings improv to Bluesfest
By Chris Cobb, The Ottawa Citizen
Improv master Wayne Brady delivered the first comedy act in Bluesfest history Tuesday night.
If TV improv guy Wayne Brady goes down in history for little else, he can always claim to be the first headline comedy act to perform at the Ottawa Bluesfest.
And if history is ultra kind, it will record a laugh-a-minute performance of sparking improv that brought the house down.
History would be wrong but given that he stepped into an untried and yet-to-be-perfected forum on his first visit to the nation’s capital, we can cut him a little slack.
Read more: Review: Brady brings improv to Bluesfest
Review: Close enough to Dead to delight tie-dye nation
Furthur gets the crowd dancing and singing along
By Lynn Saxberg, The Ottawa Citizen
Grateful Dead veterans Phil Lesh, left, and Bob Weir didn’t exchange many glances, but their playing crossed paths many times as Furthur played Bluesfest Wednesday night.
OTTAWA-For the Deadheads of Ottawa, it was a dream come true: The Dead finally played Bluesfest.
That’s how local devotees of the Grateful Dead interpreted last night’s Furthur concert at Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest. They were celebrating a landmark occasion, the debut of the iconic San Francisco jamband in the nation’s capital.
Sure, it was 30 or 40 years overdue, and there was some debate as to whether Furthur is really the Dead. The band has never been the same since the death of the band’s guiding light, Jerry Garcia, in 1995. In case you aren’t familiar with the history, Furthur is the latest chapter in the saga of the surviving band members, a musical vehicle for Dead guitarist Bob Weir and bassist Phil Lesh. They’re joined by young musicians from other similar-minded bands, including singer-guitarist John Kadlecik, who plays the part of Garcia in the Dead cover band, Dark Star Orchestra.
So, did it sound like the Dead? According to the thousands who showed up, including an American contingent that has been following the band for two weeks, absolutely. They jammed, they rocked, they picked the best songs and Kadlecik sounds enough like the Garcia to make it convincing.
Read more: Review: Close enough to Dead to delight tie-dye nation
Laughs at the Blues
Wayne Brady kicks off Bluesfest’s first venture into comedy
By Chris Cobb, The Ottawa Citizen
Wayne Brady , shown at the opening of ‘King Kong 360 3-D’ last month, says he has learned that anything can happen at an improv show . He plays Bluesfest tonight.
Ladies and gentlemen, directly from Las Vegas, please welcome Mr. Wayne Brady.
And we mean directly: By red-eye in the early hours of this morning shortly after closing his near three-year run at the Venetian Hotel.
In a phone interview from Sin City on Monday, comedian Brady described the impending end of his Vegas run as a “happy, sad” occasion.
“But I’m always looking forward to what’s coming next,” he said.
And “next” for the Who’s Line is it Anyway? fast-talker means tonight at the new Black Sheep Music & Comedy Tent at Cisco Ottawa Bluesfest.
It’s fitting that improvisational comedy should be kicking off what is essentially an entertainment experiment.
Will Bluesfest’s music-loving patrons be willing to ante up extra cash for three kings of comedy? Or will the comedy attract a crowd all its own?
Brady, 38, says he has been at the improv game too long to make too many predictions about his own role in the piece.
Read more: Laughs at the Blues
