… I couldn’t keep it up.
We had twice the amount of usual interruptions today, to make up for the smooth day that we had yesterday.
I’m not counting the rain in this because although this morning there was no sign of any precipitation whatsoever, I’m convinced that I heard some rain during the night.
Mind you, that’s all that I heard. I had another Sleep Of The Dead and didn’t feel a thing.
And so next morning I started on the building of my bed for Strider. This meant that I had to completely unload him so that I could measure up. and with stuff all over my camping pitch, another camper pulled up on the pitch beside mine. He came over to see what he was doing, and his dog promptly went to urinate on my camping pitch. And so the dog had my boot up its backside and his owner would have received one too had he not beaten a hasty retreat, with my opinion of him and his dog ringing in his ears.
While all of this was going on, a camp site steward came up. I can’t stay at this pitch, apparently, as it’s been booked for the weekend. I have to move.
“But you should have come to the office and booked in. After all, you’ve been here a few days”
“Every time I’ve been past the office I’ve seen the ‘sorry – we’re closed’ sign in the window”
“But I come on duty at 12:00”
“And I’ve been gone by then”
“But you do need to register”
“How?”
“One of the campground rangers should have come to see you and given you the details”
“And did they?”
“… errr … no”
“And as you know that I’ve been here for a few days, have you pinned a note on my tent to tell me what’s happening?”
“… errr … no”.
But in the end I had to move and I’m now elsewhere, and my bed isn’t finished either. All of this just goes to prove what I’ve always said about most Government servants. They only work when they have too and when it suits them. Providing an efficient and effective service to their clients is the last thing on their minds.
Some good news anyway concerns the group Tokyo Valentine – you remember that I saw them yesterday on one of the free stages. I was quite impressed with what I had seen of them and so I’d given my phone number to the guy who was doing their sound engineering.
The result of this was that Rachel, the keyboard player, rang me back and we had quite a lengthy chat. She likes the idea of recording one of the group’s live concerts so that I can make up a live broadcast for Radio Anglais. Plenty of interaction with the audience – that’s the thing, even if the have to summon up a clacque. I want to make my audience feel that they are part of the performance.
But as for the other acts to whom I’d slipped a little note – not a word. As I’ve said before, just like most people, musicians seem to be just interested in moaning about the lack of airplay that they receive and it’s far too much effort to actually go out and do something about it.
But before we start to involve ourselves in the festival tonight, let’s just say a word or two about the volunteers.
If you haven’t yet been to the festival, you won’t understand just how much work is done or needs to be done here and without the volunteers, none of this work would be done and the festival would ever take place. The volunteers deserve a big round of applause from everyone.
The first group that I encountered was on one of the free stages in the main street. This is Paula Tozer and Friends.
They were nothing special. Technically competent, they were, and playing an assortment of 12-bar blues including a number by JJ Cale that I hadn’t heard before but they didn’t manage to set the crowd alight.There wasn’t anything that I would have considered for broadcast on Radio Anglais.
As for the musicians, I recognised the lead guitarist. He’s called Rick Bartlett or something like that and I’m sure that I’ve seen him elsewhere at the festival in a previous year.
As for the bassist though, he gave me the opinion of being rather sour-faced. I went up to him as he was umpacking, and told him that it’s been years since I’ve seen a Rickenbacker bass, but he merely scowled and carried on unpacking, totally ignoring me.
And talking of totally ignoring me, I went into Tony’s Music Shop to see what they had – I’ve bought a few things from there in the past at various festivals.
This year though, I went in and all of the shop assistants were busy chatting away to various callers. Eventually, someone bade farewell to one of his visitors and came over to chat to me. And while we were chatting, another visitor came in and he turned to chat to them about babies and children, totally ignoring me.
That was enough for me and I walked out, with him running behind to try to persuade me to stay. But whatever happened to North American customer service? It used to be legendary, but now it’s all becoming just like Belgium. It’s shameful.
Talking of thigs being shameful, here’s Mike Peters, my favourite busker.
He’s been shunted out to play underneath the footbridge far from the madding crowd surging down the main street. He’s here playing to an audience of … errr … just me. And this is shameful treatment for someone such as him because he’s miles better than many of the performers who have appeared on a paid stage – never mind a free stage on the main street.
This is another thing that is shameful in my opinion.
The festival was created, so we were told, to counter the DJ movement and recorded music, and return to live entertainment and live music. But here, what we have is a “musician” strumming a guitar every now and again, backed by a recorded drummer, a recorded bass and a recorded backing choir. And it’s in the main street too.
But whatever is he doing with all of this gear at the festival, never mind on the main street, when many artists much better than him and playing all of their own music are stuck out at the back of the festival miles away from the crowds.
The first formal band that I encountered was the Earthbound Trio at the Barracks Tent. They were to play a little later on as one of the opening acts for Grand Theft Bus and so were warming up before the crowds filtered into to tent.
And yes, the Earthbound Trio is indeed the name, even though those of you who are able to count will have not failed to have noticed that there were four of them up on stage.
Musically, they were okay, I suppose, but this isn’t really my cup of tea and so I didn’t stay around very long.
But this is much more like my cup of tea.
Ross Neilsen is by far and away the best rock musician that you are ever likely to encounter anywhere in New Brunswick and, furthermore, he plays with the correct number of musicians too. Just a drummer and bassist – no horns, no keyboards, no nothing. This is a genuine power trio although his two backing musicians this year seem to be different than those who I’ve seen him play with in previous years.
Now if ony he would play like this all of the time, it would be a magnificent performance and he would be the star of any festival that I would organise.
He does however have a tendency to run a “blues by invitation” kind of show where he invites his friends up onto the stage to join in with the show. And while his friends are without doubt quite competent musicians, you have to hear the opening numbers of any show that Ross Neilsen puts on to hear how much of a disappointment the “augmented” show might become.
One of the things that I noticed about Ross Neilsen and his mates is that while Neilsen and his bassist weren’t ‘arf freaking out at the front of the stage, the drummer, whoever he was, was quite simply and stoically playing away on his drums totally oblivious of what was going on out at the front.
It was quite a remarkable exercise in concentration from the drummer, given the distractions.
And distractions they certainly were because Ross Neilsen and his mate were putting on quite a show and giving it all that they’ve got out there on the stage.
And as my three numbers were up (I’m only allowed to photograph the first three songs) I passed a note to backstage to ask him to contact me. I’d love to use one of his live concerts on Radio Anglais on my radio shows and I’m sure that my listeners would love it too.
This group on stage at the Barracks Tent was the winner of this year’s “Rising Stars” competition and unfortunately I forgot to enquire as to the name of the band … "it’s Free to Grow" – ed.
The stage in the Barracks Tent is one of the smallest stages at the festival, and yet there are no fewer than nine performerss on the stage. It’s cramped enough when there are only three or four performers on here and these nine were really suffering.
Once again, the music that they were playing, technically competent though it might have been, was not my cup of tea and so I didn’t hang around very long.
But what did impress me was the bassist, who you might have seen on the previous photo. He was playing what looked to me like a six-string bass and it’s been quite a long time since I’ve seen one of those on stage.
My permabulations took me back to the Mojo Tent. I’d seen Matt Minglewood and his band warming up earlier as I was wandering around and I was determined not to miss his set.
He had a four-piece band, consisting of himself on guitar and vocals, a keyboardist and drummer who provided the backing vocals, and a bassist. And all in all, it was a very tight set and from what I saw, I enjoyed the show immensely.
And did you notice the bassist? Yes, we had a female bassist who looked as if she might have been Matt Minglewood’s grand-daughter.
From what I heard of her, she kept her bass lines simple and basic, but then what else do you need in a show like this? And if she ever reads these notes, she’s quite welcome to come round to my tent and have a play on my instrument any time she likes. After all, I do have a Jaguar in my truck, don’t I?
He was a really popular performer with the crowd and rightly so because what I saw of his performance was quite impressive.
I was inclined to ask him to do something for Radio Anglais but at the last moment I had a change of heart. It turns out that he is an out-and-out militarist and spent much of his time regaling the Canadian Armed Forces and their aggressive and unprovoked invasion of Afghanistan.
I’m not having my listeners infected by any of this kind of nonsense and so I desisted. People who adopt polarised positions have to accept the consequences of their actions.
And I couldn’t hang around anyway. The battery in the camera was going flat and Canned Heat are up next in an hour. I need to do some charging.
Having rustled up the battery charger and infinity lead, I shot off to Tim Horton’s for a coffee and a charge. But, to my surprise, the Tim Horton’s in town has no public charging points. Consequently, I refused my coffee and wandered off elsewhere, eventually finding an outdoor power point at the local church where I could listen to (but not see) Garrett Mason in the Hoodoo House.
Back at the Mojo Tent, playing to a disappointingly small audience, was Canned Heat.
I couldn’t understand that. For a start, the Mojo Tent is not the best venue for one of the oldest continuing groups in the history of modern music – the Blues Tent where I’d deen Michael Franti and Spearhead is much more suitable. And I couldn’t understand why the tent here was only half-full anyway. Canned Heat should have packed out the festival.
Mind you, talking to one of the stewards earlier, he told me that for one of the artists here, the tent had been filled to beyond capacity.
The problem that they have is that they sell tickets for the individual shows but issues Ultimate Passes so that people can wander around from venue to venue. And if all of the Ultimate Pass holders were to present themselves at a venue as well as all of the regular ticket holders, then the capacity of the venue will be exceeded.
Returning to the music, I’m not sure whether or not the drummer was the same as when I has seen them previously. He certainly looked different, but then there are a great many reasons why that might happen.
But what made me consider this is that the drummer has a high-pitched voice and you’ll recognise his singing on many of the group’s early hits. And he sand several of the songs last time that I saw them, including “Going Up The Country”. But this time, “Going Up The Country” was sung by the lead guitarist who has a quite different vocal range.
Nevertheless, te performance was quite good and I enjoyed what I heard. But I had other fish to fry – there were still several groups to see and so I set off on my rounds.
But my heart wasn’t in it and I rather lost interest. I treated myself to a big plate of chips (I’d had nothing to eat since breakfast) and headed back to Strider. And here’s a thing. On the side of the street was a hat with a note – something like “thanks to all the musicians” – and people were leaving money in it, even though there was no-one with it, never mind doing anything. Imagine that – in the UK – leaving money lying around like that. Some people have much more faith in human nature than I have.
Back in my tent, I spent a half-hour or so quietly reading a book but at the end of the day I decided that enough was enough.
I turned the light off and settled down for he night. I was going to have an early night.
And I’m glad that I did, because when was the last time that we have had a “ship of the day”? Back in Montreal I reckon, and that was by default too.
It’s been years since I’ve travelled up the southern shore of Cape Breton Isle – 2003 in fact – and so I reckoned that I would go up to Sydney that way, even though it’s the least interesting route.
That’s the Atlantic Ocean just there and just a couple of hundred yards away to my right is the Bras d’Or Lake which almost cuts Cape Breton Island in two. This little strip of land is all that prevents Cape Breton Island being split in two.
At one time there was a rolling plank road that enabled sailors to drag their boats from one water to the other but in the 1850s the canal was built and this is what we have today, one of only two canals east of the St Lawrence that are still working.
There’s nothing at all now left of Fort Toulouse but the British had a fort up here on a dominant eminence for a short while.
Another place that I had passed by back in 2003 was Louisbourg, the principal town and seaport of the French on Ile Royale – Cape Breton Island – in the 18th Century. 
The French engages in a triangular trade route between Nouvelle France, the French West Indies and France itself, and they needed a seaport somewhere in between to be a naval base, ship repair centre and trans-shipment port for the interior.
And it needed to be fortified too. Its central position meant that it was miles away from anywhere else, and so miles away from where reinforcements might be obtained. 
It was captured on several occasions by the British and returned at the end of conflict, but finally the British captured it for keeps and it was abandoned, falling into ruin.
Louisbourg is alwo well-known as the terminus of the Sydney-Louisbourg railway, and there’s a kind-of railway museum here.
The “exhibits” here are just rotting away and in a few more years there won’t be anything at all left.
