Head-banging in Oregon

Britt Fest is a huge music festival that runs for the summer months each year in the historic town of Jacksonville, southern Oregon. It's been running for decades and there's some great artistes each year - many of our vintage. CSNY & Y were on last month and, next Sunday it's Joe Cocker and Steve Miller - the day we travel home - damn!

It's an outdoor theatre and a natural auditorium. We took our own beach chairs and a picnic:



On the bill on Saturday was the one and only Buddy Guy - a Blues legend I hadn't ticked off yet - although we did visit his Blues Club in Chicago a few years ago (and CK was there this year). Unbelievably, Buddy was the supporting act - to George Thorogood and the Destroyers! He's a great showman and did the usual trick of walking up through the audience:

Here's a little snippet of Hoochie Coochie Man:

He also demonstrated iother guitarists' styles - a bit of John Lee Hooker (Boom Boom), Clapton (Strange Brew) and Hendrix (Voodoo Chile).

George Thorogood then came on - nice stage show - but where's the subtlety? It was all bang, bang, bang. They describe themselves as the best bar band in the world - pretty accurate - no more than that. They murdered some Hooker (One whisky, one bourbon and one beer) and also the now sadly deceased Bo Diddley (featuring in the obituary spot at the next head-bang!). This was Who Do You Love? in picture and video clip:

As reporters for the News of the World used to say, we made our excuses and left early. Jo was mortified as we had to walk down past the stage with our beach chairs under our arms as GT was going full at it! Their performance was vaguely reminiscent of Spinal Tap! Still we saw Buddy at his best and that was what we wanted.