Ok, first of all, I'm a native of the Ottawa area, have been to every one of the 17 years of this Bluesfest, am a huge fan of the Grateful Dead, Phish, etc., and try to get to a different American festival or shows (Rothbury, Langerado, Mountain Jam, Phish at SPAC etc)every summer. Here's what I can tell you.
There is no comparison between seeing a show in the States vs Canada. The vibe is just not there, up here. Most of the heads, just will not attempt to cross the border, and with good reason, I suppose. Without that large contingent of dead-icated fans though, it's just not the same. I would rather have gone to see Further at All-Good, or Buffalo, or get down to GOTV, for the "experience" of sharing this great music with a crowd of like-minded people. This show, if there were 15,000 people there (and apparently it was the lowest attended show over the two week festival), 14,000 of them didn't have a clue. One of my friends girlfriends asked me prior to the show, "what songs will I know from these guys?". She ended up recognizing "Casey Jones", and her night was made. My night was made from dancing my butt off for almost three hours. The show was great, and what it lacked in communal spirit, was made up for by having a great place up front in the Phil-Zone, with plenty of room to dance. Just look at the setlist. Some have said it was a "greatest hits" show, but whatever,,it was just bam, bam, bam, favorite song after favorite song. My only complaint, and a very minor one at that, was they didn't continue on from Help,,into Franklin's Tower, so that my seven year old daughter could experience her favorite song (she calls it "Roll Away The Dew"). When this show ended, in my group, and in fact the 1,000 or so up front, it was all smiles, and shaking heads. Listening back to this show confirms what I thought, a little ragged at first yes, but man,,they we're cooking. Nice capture, and kudos to the taper.
A couple of other points:
1. To the guy complaining about the whistler's. Whistling is not some kind of Canadian way of showing appreciation. I suspect you were simply standing by a group of idiots. You should'a moved and come up front, plain and simple.
2. To the guy who was complaining about his lady being sick from the smoke. Are you serious? This is the first Bluesfest where the security, 20-something guys given way too much power, hauled people out for smoking, or came out of the blue to ask people, as they did to us, to put it out. I've never seen anything like it, and it certainly cut down on the amount of smoke blowing around. Whether you do or don't, doesn't matter to me, but an over-zealous security force is another sure vibe-killer. Again, if there was too much smoke where you were (outdoors???) you too should'a moved somewhere else. Yeesh, is right.

This was the only show I've seen this year. It started a bit ragged, but got progressively better as it went on. I didn't see the whole show, my lady was getting sick from the smoke. yeesh. Looking forward to listening to this, thanks for taping.

Rating for show.

Sounds great to me!
the Performance and the Recording.

but I never knew Canadians were such avid whistlers! geez man, if you're gonna whistle through nearly the entire show, spare us all and stand away from the tapers???

and how bout the alternating lyrics in the Touch of Grey closer . . nice!

Man I love these guys

I have only listened through truckin', so things might change later on. For now, well, this show seems to me different than all of the previous ones for this tour. The energy level seems down and the song choices not quite as spectacular - I read on philzone that they had issues at the border, so maybe this is the case. Anyone who was there and also at some of the others have any ideas about this?

Thanks for taping and posting. It's great to be able to hear this tour each day.


Rating changed to 4 after hearing the rest of the show. Thanks to those of you for filling in some of the details/context.

The setlist reflects border hassles and the nature of the event. They were playing a Blues Festival (although truth be told it long ago morphed into a straight music festival) but blues is an accessible medium for the thousands there who had never even heard of the GD. The "meat" Jam>Help>Caution>New Speedway is devilish nasty.

This recording is VERY nice. Stellar. A wonderful FOB with nothing overloaded, fantastic separation and simply phat phat bass...just the way Doctor Phil prescribed. Thanks Brad. A little different than pulling Nero in Mavericks. : )

RATING GIVEN ON SOUND QUALITY OF RECORDING NOT PERFORMANCE

What a thematic song selection!
Roadie trouble w/customs?
Bad road trip?
Heads get hassled?
Who's in the hoosegow for hoo-scow?
At least there was no Viola Lee Blues to write home about...
Be safe on the road my sisters and my brothers &
May the (four?) forewinds blow you safely home
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Now I see the border comment above- what's up, anyone?
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Just a friendly reminder to *DO The Donor Rap* at your place of worship &/or employment. Explain the following:
(from http://www.kidney.org/news/newsroom/fs_new/25factsorgdon&trans.cfm)
"By signing a Uniform Donor Card, an individual indicates his or her wish to be a donor. However, at the time of death, the person's next-of-kin will still be asked to sign a consent form for donation. It is important for people who wish to be organ and tissue donors to tell their family about this decision so that their wishes will be honored at the time of death. "

(from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/organdonation.html#cat22)
Experts say that the organs from one donor can save or help as many as 50 people.

(from http://www.transplantliving.org/beforethetransplant/organfacts/default.aspx) (chart)110,536 people are on various US visceral organ waiting lists as of 6/25/10

(from http://www.kidney.org/news/newsroom/fs_new/25factsorgdon&trans.cfm)
6684 people died in 2008 while waiting for life-saving organ transplants.

Give another of the living a chance to be Grateful for the Dead before s/He's Gone

With the temperature blazing the band put on a phenomenal performance!

One hell of a long set and a fantastic "Hell in a Bucket"

They were on point.