Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams

Venue:

Confederation Park, Ottawa, ON

Date: 28/06/2022

Ottawa has a very challenging climate. Temperatures are well below zero for what seems like half the year followed by very hot and humid summers with quite a few thunderstorms. Summer has now officially arrived and we have entered festival season, where the city takes full advantage of the warm weather while it lasts. Naturally these festivals have not taken place for 3 years and finally the 2022 season kicked off with the “Jazz” festival, the “Blues” festival starts next week and then there is the “Folk” festival coming in early September. There are also classical concerts around town over the summer. The names of the festivals do not mean a lot but there will be representations of relevant genres at each of them along with many other artists who fit into other categories. Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris might be better suited to the Folk festival, but I guess they were available now so the Jazz festival it is! As Emmylou remarked, “we don’t play much jazz but we can do bluegrass”.

So a lovely not too warm night in Confederation Park downtown, you couldn’t really get any closer to the centre of the city if you tried. There was other music going on at various other stages but we stayed in the park, tickets were a bargain $50 (about 30 quid), for this you could not only see these two legends, but about 7 other acts on this, the 5th day of a total of 10.

I am not a huge fan of Lucinda Williams in terms of owning records, but have somehow managed to catch her live 3 times. The last time (about 3 years ago) had been a big disappointment but she was more on form this evening. She seemed frail, had to be helped on and off stage, and her vocals were average. However the band were ragged and great, occasionally with dualling guitar solos, and after a fairly ropey start she grew into her performance offering a 90 minute set that drew from a number of her albums including her acknowledged masterpiece “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road”. Personal highlights were Drunken Angel and West Memphis. She closed with a crowd pleasing cover of “Rockin’ in the Free World” perhaps as a nod to Canada which had most of the elderly audience up and out of their zimmer frames, dancing and singing along.

Lucinda’s set was in daylight, and just as the sun was disappearing on came Emmylou. My first time seeing her and it was a hugely impressive set. Her vocals at 75 pretty much as good as ever. Her backing band the “Red Dirt Boys” were magnificent, superb musicians who resisted any temptations to overplay, just doing exactly what the songs needed. The set was a good mixture of self penned songs and covers, She was engaging and funny in her introductions, making a few Canadian jokes “This guitar has Canadian tuning, it is in A …”. Some of many highlights were “Red Dirt Girl”, “Bang the Drum Slowly”, “The Pearl” and especially “My name is Emmett Till”. There were also covers of songs form Gram Parsons, Steve Earle, James Taylor and others. Her nod to Canada being a lovely cover of Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s “Goin’ Back to Harlan” which originally appeared on Wrecking Ball. Another 90 minute set (10.30 curfew) which was pretty much the perfect length for me.

Both artists appeared to be happy to be in Canada, both making apologies for the “crazy country” to our south and it was very enjoyable evening. Good to have festivals back in the city.

The audience:

Elderly, would guess most in their 60s or 70s. The queue for beer was pretty short!

It made me think..

Music festivals in the centre of large cities are a good thing

4