Marquette Blues Festival

[lonote049]

Well, we just got back after an 8 hour drive home. We played the 4:30 to 6:00 slot on Saturday to a fabulous audience. We followed 2 local bands and were followed by Thornetta Davis (a powerful blues singer in the vein of big Maybelle or Etta James) and her very tight band from Detroit and L'il Ed and the Blues Imperials. Sunday's highlights included acoustic Delta Blues queen Rory Block, Sean Costello, a mid-20's blues monster and his band, and closed with Kenny Neal from Baton Rouge Louisiana. Kenny still has relatives in New Orleans who are missing, but he still put on a hell of an energetic show; his bass player and keyboard player are his brothers. Their dad was the late Raful Neal, the Louisiana blues harp legend. At our post-fest gig, Thornetta and her band came and stayed for a couple of sets and L'il Ed's drummer sat in for a couple of tunes (despite the fact that our drummer is a lefty).

This was a very well-run festival and the weather was perfect. Everything ran perfectly on time and they treated all of the performers like royalty for the entire fest...not just for a half hour after our sets were over. It's funny, we are a band of middle-aged guys with "real" jobs and families who play mostly for the fun of it and, after the show, we sat in the merchandise tent and autographed CD's and T-shirts! AUTOGRAPHS...from us? What a hoot! It did make us feel important and valuable, though. We donated 15% of our merchandise sales to the Katrina victims. If anybody here has the opportunity to play at the Marquette fest, don't pass it up!

[earachemyeye]

That's a long drive but it sure sounds fun meeting all those different players. Any comments on your base?

Joe