Yet another report from Ottawa’s CityFolk Festival. Day 3 of 5 featured Bush, The Headstones and Sven Gali.
[Photos by Ross MacDonald. Text by Dave Lee. – AC]
Acoustic guitar strumming was replaced by heavily distorted guitars and thunderous drums on the ‘Great Lawn at Lansdowne’ on the third night of Ottawa CityFolk festival as the hard rock/metal/grunge-rock bands took the TD Centre Stage.
Starting off the Day Three festivities were veteran 80s Canadian rockers Sven Gali out of Hamilton, Ontario. The band blew the doors wide open as they started their set with a cover of Motorhead’s ‘Ace of Spades’ that had the small but energetic crowd pumping their fists in the air right from the start. The charismatic and energetic lead singer Dave Wanless engaged the audience right without pause. With the hot sun setting behind the Aberdeen Pavilion, Wanless in sunglasses stated, “I feel like I’m in menopause!”
The dual guitar attack of founding member Andy Frank and newcomer Sean Williamson laid down the heavy riffs while Dan Dila (drums) and Shawn T.T. Minden locked down the rhythm section. This was a tight veteran band.
The band worked through a number of their hits from the past 30 years including ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore’ – a song from their first album in 1993 about “leaving home forever” as Wanless described. The band also played ‘Keeps Me Down’ from their 2nd album, ‘Now’ from their 3rd album, ‘Coming Home’ and ‘Tie Dyed Skies’. During ‘Tie Dyed Skies’, Wanless jumped off the stage and wandered into the crowd high fiving and shaking hands with the crowd.
Next up was Kingston, Ontario’s heavy hitting punk rock band Headstones led by the incomparable singer/songwriter/actor Hugh Dillon. Dillon strutted onto the stage and announced, “What’s up Ottawa? Let’s get this show on the fucking road!”
The band kicked it into high gear with their heavy punk cover of the Travelling Wilburys ‘Tweeter and the Monkey Man’. Dillon did not waste any time engaging the audience by jumping off stage and wandering into the crowd during the performance. His roadie worked overtime as he tried to control the slack on Dillon’s mic cord during his travels through the ecstatic crowd. At one point early in the set, Dillon threw his harmonica into the crowd. This will happen a couple more times during their performance. Now that’s a nice souvenir from a rock show!
On the song ‘Cubically Contained’, guitarist Trent Carr laid down a wicked slide guitar solo while drummer Jesse Labovitz and bassist Tim White laid down that signature Headstones heavy thumping backbeat. Despite the antics of the spitting, snorting, and rebel rousing Hugh Dillon, the Ottawa Folkfest crowd was very fairly subdued as there were no signs of crowd surfing or mosh pit activities.
Near the end of their set the band launched into a medley starting with a cover of the Hip’s ‘New Orleans is Sinking’ that brought the crowd into a frenzy. The medley morphed into War’s ‘Low Rider’ and finished with ‘House of the Rising Sun’ by The Animals.
Dillon followed this with a rant about his days of youth when he would travel to Ottawa to watch bands like BTO play at Barrymores on Bank Street and complaining about “going up and down those fucking stairs!” Evidently the legendary venue is in financial trouble again, so he urged the crowd, “instead of buying merch, help us buy Barrymores!”
They covered another song from their Kingston brothers – The Tragically Hip – with a heavy version of ‘Blow at High Dough’ that is followed by ‘When Something Stands for Nothing’. The show ends with fan favourites ‘Smile and Wave’ and closed with ‘Cemetery’. Dillon slammed his microphone onto the stage until the head broke off and handed it to a fan in the crowd before strutting off stage. The Headstones performance was short, fast, powerful and left everybody wanting more.
Dillon is the very definition of a Rock Star.
As the crowd awaited headliners Bush to come onstage, a throng of middle-aged women made their way to the front of the stage. Thunderous drums greeted them as the 90s British post-grunge rock band launched into ‘Identity’ from their ‘Art of Survival’ album. Lead singer Gavin Rossdale was as energetic and charismatic as ever. Let’s just say the ‘swoon-meter’ was reading very high. One fan named Elizabeth stated, “Oh my God he’s so good looking… there’s not an ounce of fat on him!” A man behind me named Randy said, “Please keep your shirt on” as he was afraid that he would get stampeded by the adoring female fans around him. Let’s just say at 57 years of age, Rossdale looks pretty damn good and still has that frontman magic with the ladies.
The second song of the evening was their megahit ‘Machinehead’ that had the energetic Ottawa crowd jumping up and down while singing along. The interchanging heavy guitar melodies between Rossdale and lead guitarist Chris Traynor were on point.
During ‘Flowers on a Grave’, Gavin made his way down to the floor to shake hands and greet his adoring fans. The place went nuts!
The band played ‘Everything Zen’ that featured a heavy breakdown by bassist Corey Britz and drummer Nik Hughes while Rossdale had the crowd buzzing as he took his Fender Strat and rubbed his strings against his amplifier cabinets.
‘Heavy is the Ocean’, ‘More Than Machines’, and ‘Little Things’ were next before an encore that featured Rossdale returning back onstage by himself with his Fender Kurt Cobain Jaguar guitar. The crowd knew immediately what was coming as he invited the crowd to light up their phones because he wanted to “sing a pretty song with pretty lights.” The heavily distorted intro chords of Glycerine rang out through the sea of LED lights. He stopped playing and singing during the 2nd verse as he let the crowd take the lead. This was certainly the highlight moment of the evening. The show concluded with the catchy revolving bass riff of ‘Comedown’ ringing through the night air.
No doubt that the heavy rock night of Ottawa Folkfest was a resounding success.
