Eddie, Are You Kidding?

Hippiefest 2008 report:

1. Jack Bruce did a legitimate "stupid music" tune (in other words, a song that Bob Wills covered), the classic old blues song "Sitting On Top of the World". Of course, he did it Willie Dixon style.

2. Great but too short-the shortest set lasted less than 20 minutes. The longest set lasted 45 minutes. Even then, the concert started on time and would have gone right up to to the 11 PM curfew if each act had only done two songs more apiece. The extra time was built-in to allow for stage sound equipment changes.

3. Ideal weather. It was actually cool, unusual for a "hot August night".

4. The Meadowbrook sound mix was impeccable, which was a good sign. They have a state of the art mixing and speaker system, which did the trick. There had been reports from earlier shows in the Hippiefest tour (some as recently as last week!) that some of the shows' sound mixes were terrible.

5. As was the case last year, there was an official "Hippiefest" house band that backed up a few of the groups. MVP last year and this year-leader and ace guitarist Godfrey Townsend, who faithfully re-created George's slide guitar on Badfinger's "Day After Day" and also dueled ably with Jack Bruce on the old Cream stuff.

http://www.godfreytownsendmusic.com/

6. New non-Hippiefest band member MVP-from Animals 2008, redhead bass player Paula O'Rourke! She nailed the intro to "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" to the wall.

7. Of course the premiere bass player in the house this night was Jack Bruce. His set was a religious experience.

8. Genial hosts Flo and Eddie were as always highly entertaining. They also did a 5 song set of their own, but sadly left out last year's Zappa tribute.

9. As I noted earlier, original Animals guitarist Hilton Valentine is along for the ride this time. When he started the guitar riff for "House of the Rising Sun", the other band members bowed down at his feet. Including Eric.