Baby Boomers Beware. This is your Final Fantasy

With most of the city returned to the 9-5 weekday grind, Bluesfest shows aren't underway until 6 for the rest of the week. I spent the latter part of the afternoon volunteering in the Bluesfest office, an altogether civilized and enjoyable volunteer gig.

Basically, I am the voice of Bluesfest for all of those people who call the festival line with questions about shows, ticket prices, and where to park. Most of the calls are fairly rudimentary, but every once in awhile, you get a stand-out. My favourite from yesterday was a lengthy conversation that ended with the woman - I'm guessing from the rasp of her voice that she was in her fifties - confiding in me that Johnny Lang was the only person she was coming to see and that if she was younger, boy, would she like to... .

My modus operandi for the evening was to see Final Fantasy on the Blacksheep Stage. Before him was the Halifax band, In-Flight Safety. Based on their bio in the Bluesfest guide, I thought I might be in for a treat as they, "don't want to be one of those bands that go through the motions... we want our shows to stand out." The word "intensity" was also mentioned.

Well, if that was intensity, I'd hate to see what happens when they break a sweat because, for me, their set made for little more than background music to a lovely pink-hued sunset over the Ottawa River.

Final Fantasy, now that's a different story. I've seen him twice prior at the Blacksheep Inn and wasn't disappointed either time. Last night's set was by far the best I've seen him. He was fresh and clear-sounding and played a mix of stuff from both records, ending the set with a lovely version of "Better Than Worse". For his encore, he covered Bloc Party's "This Modern Love".

Along the way, there was also considerable banter with the audience. At one point, he told a hilarious story about his younger twin sisters who had an unfortunate run-in with a baby boomer-ish woman at the Bob Dylan show on Thursday night, making very clear that attacks on his sisters would not be tolerated. I don't think he quite called for mass boomer throat-slashing, but he wasn't far off either.

I also found him quite genuine in his appreciation of our appreciation. He's been touring for awhile and won the fancy Polaris Prize last fall, but still retains a real earnestness onstage. It's endearing. Perhaps it's part of the reason why the autograph line after the show was about 100 people thick.

Meanwhile, on the main stage, I heard the tail-end of the Hedley set as I was leaving Lebreton Flats. In the span of 30 seconds, the lead singer confirmed his utter wankery with some comment about the band being better than people in the audience and then quickly recanting, only to lead the audience he's supposedly better than in a chorus of "Hedley sucks". It was yet another tragic confirmation that Canadian Idol needs to be stopped.