B. B. King Blues Festival, Molson Amphitheatre, Toronto, Ontario

Last night, August 23, 2004, I attended the B.B. King Blues Festival at Molson's Amphitheatre, in Toronto. It was a perfect summer evening. The sun was shining bright and hot when we arrived around 5:00pm. Probably why the lineups for $11.25 draft beer (for the large 1 1/2 pints) were so long. You could purchase a regular for the low price of $8.00.

The high prices didn't deter anyone from chugging down the cool ale. The lineups were long and steady all night. The cool thing about the Amphitheatre and probably most venues is that you were allowed to take your drinks with you to your seats, but you couldn't smoke in the seating area. So in other words, you could get piss tanked but you could not smoke a nasty, cigarette. Nor could you stand up and dance, because the people behind you paid good money to sit quietly and listen to some quality Blues live.

I couldn't stop my body from moving though. I wanted to dance so bad, I could hardly stand it. At one point, when my friend and I were returning to our seats after his smoke break, I stopped him before we reached our aisle, so that we could stand against the wall and I could finally dance. We were approached very quickly by the security who politely requested that we return to our seats. I looked around for the flashing sign to indicate that we should be putting our seat belts on. I didn't see one, but being the obedient Canadian that I am, I followed orders and reluctantly returned to my designated seat.

Once in my seat, I boogied as much as I possibly could so that my body would think I was dancing and I waited patiently for the next smoke break so that I could get up and jiggle to the beat on the way to and from the smoking area.

The line up was wonderful. Between 5:30pm sharp until 10:30pm we were serenaded by The Muddy Waters Blues Band, Dr. John, Shemekia Copeland, Elvin Bishop and BB King himself.

I had a great deal of fun, in spite the fact that I couldn't dance. The saddest part of the evening was when B.B. King played his last song and introduced the musicians one by one, the conservative crowd didn't get it. I don't think they comprehended that it was actually his last song and nobody called for an encore. He introduced the musicians, said good night, the lights flew on and that was it. I was dumbfounded. Never before has a concert ended so quickly. But I don't blame him, the crowd was so sleepy that he must have wondered why he was there.

I don't want to give the impression that he wasn't appreciated because the applause and cat calling, was generous following each tune, but as far as I'm concerned, everyone should have been up shaking what their momma's gave 'em.

I loved the concert and would highly recommend any Blues fan make sure that they catch it.