another r&r festival come and gone, so here are a couple from this year, leading off with the dr in the house, hugh laurie and the copper bottom band
and the saturday night closer, LA BOTTINE SOURIANTE, this was something i'd go see again, a large multi-instrumentalist band, with percussive dance. they are based out of montreal, although by their heavily accented english i'd say their roots are in rural french quebec. the music is all based on modern interpretations of old french/french canadian folk music with celtic/irish/scottish influences. great showmanship. here a folk/dance song, all male voices accompanied initially only by percussive footboards and the dancer wired to pick up her feet and hand slaps, one of the fiddlers singing and playing foot percussion, each member played multiple instruments, almost to the point of not being able to track who was on what later in the show, a set of reels, with the fiddlers, accordian, and the saxephone trading leads, with the percussive dancer answering each lead in a challenge/faceoff type of playing the full band, all 11 of them, that's right, 11 musicians
and i'm kind of working backwards here, nothing new to me. friday evening, johny nicholas & hellbent, featuring cindy cashdollar on multiple lap steel guitars, scrappy jud newcomb on guitars and banjo and austin based, rhode island born and raised bluesman johny nicholas. scrappy getting into the blues ms cashdollar putting the steel to it the rhythm section keeping the beat and johny nicholas leading it all
and friday night's mainstage closer, perennial rhythm & roots crowd and new england favorites, upstate ny based jam band DONNA THE BUFFALO
These are great Gary. ; I really like the second shot of LA BOTTINE SOURIANTE, it really shows how much fun they are having, especially the dancer. ; The "Eddie Vedder" shot is great exposure with just the right amount of blur in the background. ; Thanks for sharing!
Strings, horns and a dancing nymph...it does not get any better than that! ; What camera did you use?
This an all 5dmk3 show, we camp in my trailer right on the festival grounds and i have a generator so charged batteries are no problem. And kevin and i hit the entry line early each am so we get pretty close to the stage each day. I only used 2 lenses for almost all weekend, the 35f 1.4 and the 70-300 f4.5-5.6 the latter is what the la bottine shots were with, some right from my seat. It's always great when you can shoot from the comfort of your lawn chair
Wonderful set, Gary. ; Sounds like a fantastic festival. I first saw La Bottine Souriante (which I believe means "the happy boot") back in the late 80s. ; At that time they were a small group without the horn section. ; I saw them again later, and the horns really add to their sound.
Very nice shots - the La bottine shots are indeed nice, especially that first, and nice shot of Dr. House and his band too. Would have liked to have heard some of them...when I was up in northern Quebec last year we had a local band playing at a small club in Saguenay that played that folksy traditional Acadian style - it was a local nobody band, but they were quite good.
thanks for the kind words everyone, la bottine souriante does indeed mean "the happy boot". or at least that's the best i could make out from the stage talk, these guys have been a professional act since 1976, added the horns around 1998, have played all over the world, in fact were a featured act at the summer olympic ceremonies, you'd think maybe they would speak a little better english. but the music does speak to my soul, so maybe they have it right after all. and below is a friday night shot of austin based roots band "the gourds". very good live, and you clearly hear the influence of the band in their music, in fact their latest was recorded at levon helms studio in woodstock ny. and saturday afternoon, the carolina chocolate drops, a great act based on old time african american string band music, not so surprising, a lot of traditionalist minded bluegrass folks have some issue with this, but the banjo is clearly an african in origin instrument, in face riannon giddens actually plays an old fretless minstrel banjo during their set.
so continuing with the festival, sunday night, mainstage, canadian roots band, all the way from winnipeg, with the original lineup, and 1 additional fiddler, THE DUHKS. they should seriously consider staying with the twin fiddle format and this lineup, my 3rd time seeing them at r&r, and their strongest effort by far, the crowd was rocking it on their feet most of their set. they have a very unusual rhythm set up, no bass, scott senor on percussion and rocking it out to a phenomenal live version of down to the river
