After last year's inaugural event (which I wasn't able to attend), the organisers behind Feverfest clearly have expansion in mind. This year's event, last Friday and Saturday (22nd and 23rd June) was co-hosted by Irene's Pub and Clocktower (Glebe) with indoor and outdoor stages.
M and I spent an excellent Saturday afternoon relaxing in the shade at Clocktower. This year, I was enticed to go because The PepTides were playing but enjoyed most of the bands I saw. The lunch slot had been awarded t0 Loon Choir whom I hadn't encountered before, but were pretty good. We were not as impressed by Zoo Legacy; their vocal sound in particular seemed either retro (if you like them) or dated (if you don't). During these sets more people were arriving, but the indoor stage was still pretty quiet when Ty Hall played his set. Just going on his unplugged set, I heard interesting lyrics in a singer-songwriter style, but having listened to some songs on his website, his recorded sound is really quite different. At a loose end on Canada Day? Hall is playing Canada Day On A Boat.
By the time The PepTides arrived onstage there was a reasonably sized crowd at the outdoor stage. Sadly a short set but mostly made up of newer material; for me, Saturday's rendition of 'Love, Live, Get High' had a definite Wembley Stadium vibe to it. Another impressive show and again I was left thinking 'when is their new album out?'. Some of the new tracks are available via Myspace and YouTube. Go and listen! It will be good prep for Bluesfest :)
After that high point, the audience ebbed away slightly, though not before checking out Julia Dales' set on the indoor stage. I was familiar with the name from the now-defunct Ottawa Xpress but not with the songs. Rather an original concept and an excellent and very interesting performance from Dales, by herself, creating live loops to accompany herself onstage. More 'one-girl folk-pop' via YouTube and Facebook. Just before Dales, we saw some of The Strain outside. We were impressed with them at JUNOFest and remained so, although to my ears their influences are a little too obvious - caught The Killers, Franz Ferdinand and MGMT in successive songs.
Final show for us before slowly cycling home were The Goodluck Assembly. They seemed to have started off samey but improved through the rest of their set. By this time more evening festivalgoers had arrived and quickly joined in the whoops and applause.
All in all a fun day out, good fun (and good beer too!). I also found it humourous that Saturday afternoon Ottawa must be such a safe place that the city could spare 2 cops all afternoon to 'attend' a neighbourhood festival!
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