BF@XR part 2

The Hilton Garden Inn was booked for Saturday Night so we transferred to the Candlewood Suites on the south side of Wabash Avenue between 7th and 8th Streets. The refurbished Tribune building if you remember. I mention this as explanation from missing the National Anthem at noon and the first 20 minutes of Daphne Willis & Co. Daphne is a charming young lady who accepted my apology later.





if the people around us were slow to get started, Daphne was not - the part of her set that I saw was fast paced and much of the rhythm came from her guitar play. She got a lot of sound out of her acoustic guitar.

Packing and moving was painless but took some time away from the blues so, unlike ex-Mayor Burke who was front and center throughout, we missed a little. Here is last night's hotel as seen from the window of today's and a picture of His Honor avec le chapeau d'orange.




Hardline Drive arrived.


and played not blues but bluegrass to the surprise of all but those who had read the program. Everyone seemed to enjoy it - even blues fans might not be completely ready for hard hitting blues first thing after breakfast even, as it might be for us, if breakfast is in the early afternoon. The professionalism and talent of Hardline Drive won out.


Miche Fambro was next. BF@XR caught Miche in transition from single act to group. They have been together 8 days and he's still doing some of his one man band guitar as percussion, keyboard and strings act while they stand around. I was embarrassed when he dismissed the number I liked most as a 3-chord tune. Everyone around me in the front of the crowd seemed to love Miche so I figured he must have been good then I noticed that he was playing electric guitar left handed and had not restrung the guitar and was playing very intricate fast paced runs (not like surfer music icon Dick Dale who was also upside down and backwards on the guitar but got all his speed from quick double picking) but fast licks that would be hard to replicate on a keyboard. This Miche Fambro needs to be seen to be believed. His style is complex to say the least.



Then Duke Tumatoe and the Power Trio took over. Stopped traffic at 7th and Wabash at 5pm. The crowd laughed at Duke's jokes, swayed to the blues sound and the crisp professionalism of The Power Trio and Duke Tumatoe's blues voice and then gaped when he shifted to a powerful rock falsetto.





Not too dirty dancing.

Then a little past 6 another young girl sang with The Right Now. She looked a little like the actress who played Wonder Woman on TV. She wowed us all. Her name is Stefanie Berecz, a name to watch for.



.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I had not recovered from Ms Berecz when this guy named Guy Forsyth came out. I have not heard anyone compare Guy to Tom Waits but I don't know why not. Seems apt to me.
Many were standing when he did Summertime which he turned into a blues saw playing anthem. Here's Guy Forsyth -



The Kelly Richey band followed. The base player and drums were rock solid. That's the base player in the foreground of the picture shaking his head of hair around to such extreme that my slow camera shows him with two faces. That's Kelly Richey behind him. Her virtuosity on guitar had the crowd standing and cheering for song after song.



That's when I crashed. alas
I missed the Clayton Miller Blues Band and Ellusion.