Disappointments sour festival

Saturday's installment of the annual Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz festival took place amid the beautiful serenity known as Gallup Park. Unfortunately, the music meant to compliment the gorgeous surroundings was no match for mother nature's elegance. In other words, the show was flat out boring.

Some crowd members had expected a much more lively offering, especially with Detroit's own Atomic Fireballs on the bill.

After landing a reportedly huge record deal with Atlantic earlier this summer, the Fireballs filled a slot on the Warped tour, and most recently headlined their own concert at downtown Pontiac's Clutch Cargo's.

But alas, the Fireballs never showed. More than a few irate fans asked the inevitable question, "What happened?" The Fireballs decided to cancel their engagement in order to rehearse for their new record, which is slated for release this fall, Lee Berry, President of Prism Productions, the company responsible for booking the band for the festival said.

Always looking on the positive side, festival organizers saw the cancellation as an opportunity for headlining band Groove Collective and Olu Dara, another act on the bill, to extend their sets. Offering the crowd more of a good thing thus seemed to be the spin placed on the situation.

While those in attendance seemed mildly appreciative of the extended set time, the music, to be brutally honest, was not of the highest caliber. The Groove Collective, a 10-piece outfit from New York, were especially disappointing, despite interesting instrumentation and a deep repertoire.

The music seemed to serve more as background to the conversations taking place in the park throughout the day than as entertainment. There were few people that appeared genuinely interested in what was happening on stage.

It could be that that is what this festival is about, after all: hanging out and having fun with music in the background to lighten the mood. It seems a sad fate for two genres of music that without a doubt deserve more attention and prominence than a backdrop for subdued concert goers.

In America, blues and jazz are the heart and soul of it all. Too bad that there was very little heart and soul in Gallup Park on Saturday.

09-14-98