RBC Bluesfest picks up where it left off with 2022 headliners
“You can almost argue this lineup is three years in the making,” said Mark Monahan, co-founder and executive director of the annual festival.
Lynn Saxberg, Ottawa Citizen
Publishing date: Mar 08, 2022 • 0 minutes ago • 4 minute read
With Rage Against the Machine, Alanis Morissette, Jack Johnson and Marshmello topping the list of artists confirmed to appear at this summer’s RBC Bluesfest, the 2022 edition of the event appears to be picking up where 2020 left off.
Two years ago, 2020 was shaping up to be the best-selling year ever for Ottawa’s popular and long-running summer music festival, and Rage Against the Machine was on track to be the biggest show — until COVID-19 restrictions forced the cancellation of almost every major live-music gathering in the country.
“You can almost argue this lineup is three years in the making,” said Mark Monahan, co-founder and executive director of the annual festival, in an interview. “Our focus this year is to get back to what we had hoped to do in 2020, which was ambitious. It was going to be a massive year for us and we’re hoping to get back to that point.”
This year’s Bluesfest runs from July 7-17 in its regular location on the grounds of the Canadian War Museum at LeBreton Flats Park. As usual for pre-pandemic times, there will be three outdoor stages, and one in the museum’s Barney Danson Theatre.
Last September, Bluesfest and CityFolk festival organizers hosted “mini” versions at Lansdowne park.
Naturally, there are some changes to this year’s program, including the addition of two country-music headliners – Luke Combs and Luke Bryan – that Monahan predicts could rival Rage in terms of appeal.
“Rage is arguably going to be the biggest headliner we’ve ever had but we have two others that are probably not far behind,” Monahan said of the two Lukes, who will perform on separate nights. (To find out who’s playing when go to ottawabluesfest.ca)
Other headliners include Canadian songstress Sarah McLachlan in her Bluesfest debut, Ontario hardcore heroes Alexisonfire, indie-rockers The New Pornographers and alt-rockers The National, plus crowd favourites Michael Franti & Spearhead, soulman Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, 90s hip-hop group TLC and Can-rockers Three Days Grace and The Tea Party.
For Ottawa-born superstar Morissette, the Bluesfest appearance will be her first hometown concert in more than a decade. She’s also one of a significant number of Ottawa-area women in the spotlight, a list that includes blues guitarist Sue Foley, jazz phenom Angelique Francis, hip hop artists Lia Kloud and Mischa, folk outfit Jessica Pearson and The East Wind, post-punk quintet Bonnie Doon and a contingent of singer-songwriters, from Amanda Lowe to Mia Kelly.
In putting together the lineup, which consists of about 90 artists so far, with more expected to be confirmed in the coming weeks, Monahan said efforts were made to increase representation by under-recognized folks on stage. The lineup is currently about 43 per cent female, 28 per cent BIPOC and 8 per cent LGTBQ+.
“This is something that obviously we’ve been talking about and working on for many years,” said Monahan. “There’s a movement towards being more conscious of gender balance and diversity in general.”
One of the challenges in mounting this year’s festival is the fact that Canada is about a year behind the rest of the North American music industry in returning to live shows. Because our pandemic restrictions have lasted longer, tours were routed to avoid crossing the border and Canadian cities fell off the radar of booking agents.
“It’s been challenging to get attention from the remaining people in the industry,” Monahan said, noting the market needs to be rebuilt. Another hurdle is that many music-industry workers found jobs in other fields during the pandemic, resulting in shortages in the numbers of drivers, technicians and other backstage workers available.
Thanks to its reserve fund and help from government support programs, Bluesfest was able to retain its core staff during the pandemic.
“How to survive and keep the team intact, that was the biggest challenge financially,” Monahan said. “What we thought was going to be six or eight months of carrying the team became two years.”
As for pandemic protocol, Monahan said the festival will follow all public-health recommendations in place at the time of the event. At the moment, proof of vaccination is not expected to be required.
Despite the number of people who held onto the passes they bought in 2020 and the ones who flocked to buy tickets to Combs before Christmas, the big question that remains is how many fans will make plans to attend the festival this year.
“We can’t automatically expect that everyone is going to rush back,” Monahan said. “Everyone knows people who are not gung-ho to go out again, and that is going to take time. I hope it doesn’t take years. I hope it’s a few months. My anticipation is that we will have to work hard to get those people back.”
Tickets are available during a one-day presale that starts at 10 a.m. Wednesday and runs until 11:59 p.m. that night. No code is required. The general on-sale date is Friday, starting at 10 a.m. To purchase, go to
https://bf22.frontgatetickets.com/
lsaxberg@postmedia.com
https://ottawacitizen.com/entertainm...022-headliners
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