Live music galleries: Ottawa Bluesfest 2019, day seven – Brandon “Taz” Nederauer, Shakey Graves

(Since I’ll be too busy attending Ottawa Bluesfest over the next week or so to continue with this blog’s regularly scheduled programming, I thought I would do a special ‘live galleries’ series this week to share some pics from some of the sets I am enjoying.)

Artists: Brandon “Taz” Nederauer, Shakey Graves
When: July 11th, 2019
Where: Lebreton Flats Park, Ottawa
Some words: After taking another night off imposed by serious stomach issues (I’ll never know what that was), I was back at the festival last night. A massive wave of violent storm activity passed through the area right around the time the gates were due to open, delaying this for almost two hours and cancelling a whole swath of the early shows. This suited me just fine because I had planned from the beginning to head back home by bus, eat a home-cooked meal, and then drive back in to catch a couple sets.

On deck on the Bluesville stage tonight were some serious guitarists. I arrived with plenty of time to catch the first of them to take the stage for 7:30: teenage blues rock guitarist, Brandon “Taz” Nederauer. It wouldn’t necessarily be music I would listen to all the time but you have to hand it to a kid that picked up a guitar after watching the film “School of rock” and found out he had real talent.

The headliner and real reason I roused myself back down to the muddy festival grounds last night was the return to Bluesfest of Alejandro Rose-Garcia, aka Shakey Graves. I had seen him twice before already, but have recently discovered his latest album and the new direction for the Texas-born guitarist and roused my interest in him all over again. As for his show? Like always, the man was a performer and had the crowd with him the whole way.