The Capitol Centre’s Bluesfest kicks off on August 30, with Glass Tiger taking the stage. Events and concerts unroll until Saturday night, and as always, the weekend will be jam-packed with music. One of the bands to watch for is Fog Blues and Brass Band, who play this Saturday, Sept. 2 at 7 p.m.
"We're a fun, easy-going type of band, and we like to keep our lyrics light and airy, poking fun at situational experiences we've encountered or stories about people we know," the band explained in a recent release.
All Saturday and Sunday the Capitol Centre is hosting live music in the parking lot behind the building. And the cost will not give you the blues, because both days are free to attend. The full line-up is listed on the Capitol Centre’s website. Spoiler alert – there are a lot of bands scheduled to perform.
See: Popular Bluesfest to involve more locations and more local talent
Fog Blues and Brass Band are a seven-piece powerhouse based in Kitchener, Ontario. The band came together around 2018, and shortly after recorded their first album, Into the Fog. Although the band was new, the musicians were all well seasoned in the ways of rock and blues after decades of touring, recording, and collaborating with various artists.
Each know very well how to tear it up on their respective instruments, as evidenced in their live shows and on their latest album, Twelve Bar Prescription. You’ll hear lots from that this Saturday.
“We’re really excited to play North Bay,” said Dan Jancar, who plays tenor sax with the band. “We’ve been looking forward to this for about 10 months.”
The band is getting choosier with their gigs as the years pass, but they were thrilled to get the invite to BluesFest, and it was an invitation they could not resist. Indeed, the band aims to become more of a fixture on the blues festival scene and play some killer shows on a regular basis while leaving time to record new music.
It’s not easy co-ordinating seven members for rehearsals and gigs, Jancar noted, and planning a solid tour would be quite the undertaking. Plus, as all of us are, the band is getting older – “I’m the youngest at 48,” Jancar said – “so if we’re going to tour, we have to have a chiropractor, a dietician, and a nutritionist to come with us,” he joked.
Makes for an expensive tour, so the band will continue to cherry-pick their performances. After all, these guys have already done it all and paid the dues of constant bar gigs and tours. Now it’s time to play where you want, work on new material and recording, and focus on the quality over the quantity.
And that seven-piece blues rock quality is coming directly at you this Saturday at 7 o’clock. The power can be felt in the parking lot behind the Capitol Centre, which is located at 150 Main Street East, North Bay.
Prepare for things to get foggy.
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
