We (brother-in-law Brian, hockey-buddy Brock and I) went to see Buddy Guy on Saturday night...great show at a pretty interesting outdoor venue, right beside the Credit River, and just above the Lakeshore. They had "waitresses" walking around the whole place selling cans of beer! So civilized!
Very energetic old Buddy can still sing in a strong, clear voice and can also still play the hell out of his electric guitar.
Friday night Brian and I went to the Crooked Cue and played a couple of games of pool (I lost. Big. As usual.) We went downstairs to catch the second set of "Rave On", a pretty decent Stevie Ray Vaughan tribute band. The guy has the look, and the guitar-playing down, but can't quite match Stevie on vocals...but was very good to watch nonetheless.
On the street on Saturday, we came across a young guy from Quebec called Ricky Paquette who just floored me with his guitar playing abilities...he picks the strings with his fingers (not a guitar pick) much like Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits...he covers Buddy Guy, Stevie-Ray Vaughan and others really well, and has an exceptionally strong singing voice, particularly for someone so young. He should only get better with age, and my prediction is that he'll be a big star in the blues community (which, sadly, is pretty small relative to the "pop" music scene). You can check him out here on his myspace page, or look him up on youtube.com :
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=86864404
After the street re-opened at around 7:00 p.m. and the bands dispersed or went into the various bars for a few more sets, we had some time to kill before Buddy Guy's show at 10:00 p.m., and even before his opening act "The Detroit Women" who were also very good and very fun-to-watch singing soul, blues, gospel, etc. We walked over to a great little Thai restaurant http://www.thaisignature.ca/contact.htm for some very excellent food and Singha beer.
A really great weekend of music, food and enjoying some beers with friends and family! If you missed it (and I think most of you did!) you should really think about it for next year - it'll be the 10th anniversary of the SouthSide Shuffle, and will no doubt have some extra-special things on tap.
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