Bluesfest Day 7: Green Day conquers the masses
Green Day, one of the United States' most popular punk-influenced bands, descended on Bluesfest for the first time Friday, deploying a volley of hits during a momentous main-stage performance that drew a huge crowd to the plaza of the Canadian War Museum at LeBreton Flats Park.
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Under clear skies and refreshingly cool temperatures, the legendary rockers worked hard to make it a great show, winning over a crowd that had been buzzing with anticipation for weeks.
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In fact, it was hard to tell who was more into it, the fans of all ages packed shoulder to shoulder singing along to every word, or the band members rejoicing that they weren't at home in Trump's America.
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'This is Ottawa. This is Canada,' bellowed singer-songwriter Billie Joe Armstrong at one point. 'This is not America.'
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In that spirit, the protest-minded American Idiot made a perfect starting point, with lyrics tweaked to reflect the current political situation. It was followed by the still-relevant, anti-war anthem, Holiday, and the 2009 advisory Know Your Enemy, which also carries some pertinent messages for today's voters (and featured a fan from the audience shout-singing along on stage).
Come to think of it, most of the Green Day catalogue has aged remarkably well, largely thanks to the combination of smart songwriting and the resurgence of an uncertain political climate. Core members Armstrong, Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt, now in their 50s, looked to be in great shape, too.
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Instead of dwelling on the issues of the day, however, they made the concert great fun, feeding off the energy that emanated from the crowd. When he wanted to gauge reaction, Armstrong shouted 'Hey-O' and listened for the echo. When he wanted to rage, it was 'Let's go crazy, Ottawa.'
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Armstrong was so impressed with everything that he announced a new headquarters for the California-based band. 'I'm not going home,' he declared. 'We are Green Day from Ottawa, from now on.'
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The love grew with each song, from Boulevard of Broken Dreams to Longview, Welcome to Paradise, Dilemma, 21 Guns, Basket Case and more. A final singalong, this time on the melodic Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), lulled listeners into a sense of bliss as the show ended, only for a dazzling fireworks display to provide the real climax.
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Winnipeg Free Press
25 minutes ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Winnipeg artist's collaborations with the hive mind proved sweet
Aganetha Dyck saw art in the everyday, the domestic, the small. Nowhere was that more evident than in her internationally recognized work with live honeybees. The Winnipeg-based artist would place found objects — china figurines, sports equipment, Barbie dolls, stiletto heels — in beehives, and the bees would cover them in honeycomb and wax, creating striking sculptural works that have been exhibited in Canada, the United States and Europe. WAYNE GLOWACKI / FREE PRESS FILES Aganetha Dyck poses with her pieces Wedding Guest Shoes (right) and Sports Night in Canada in 2007. WAYNE GLOWACKI / FREE PRESS FILES Aganetha Dyck poses with her pieces Wedding Guest Shoes (right) and Sports Night in Canada in 2007. Dyck always made sure to give credit to her millions of tiny, buzzing collaborators, because to her it was, indeed, a collaboration. 'They're all unionized,' she told the Free Press in 2007 after winning a Governor General's Award for visual and media arts, as well as the Arts Award of Distinction from the Manitoba Arts Council. 'I look after them well.' Dyck died on July 18. She was 87. 'As an artist, she was absolutely fearless,' says Shawna Dempsey, visual artist and co-executive director of MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women's Art). 'She would work with any material in any way, even if no one had done it before, considered it before, or if those processes and materials were considered crafty or feminine, which, particularly in the '80s or '90s, was a real way to marginalize women artists. TOM HANSON / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Governor General Michaëlle Jean congratulates Aganetha Dyck after recieving the Governor General's award in visual and media arts at an awards ceremony in Ottawa in 2007. Governor General Michaëlle Jean congratulates Aganetha Dyck after recieving the Governor General's award in visual and media arts at an awards ceremony in Ottawa in 2007. 'But nonetheless, Aganetha was true to her instincts and her inner artistic voice, and so, she canned buttons in mason jars and she boiled sweaters and she put a wedding dress in a beehive.' 'There's lots of ways to describe her art, but for me, one of the ways I've been thinking about recently is that I think she reflects the rise of feminist art practice in Canada in the 1970s,' says Serena Keshavjee, a professor of art and architecture at the University of Winnipeg who has curated and written about Dyck's work. Dyck took the domestic processes of so-called 'women's work,' and elevated them to high art, but she also saw immense value in collaboration — whether it was with bees or people. 'Collaboration is a feminist methodology. She collaborated with everyone, very generously. Scientists loved her. Beekeepers loved her. Artists around town loved her. She collaborated with her son (artist Richard Dyck),' Keshavjee says. 'This is part of her personality, but it's also a methodology. She was generous and she shared and she wanted to make art with other people. So all of these things come together for me and saying she was this revolutionary feminist artist in the '70s.' Dyck, who was born in Marquette, came to art later in her life and was largely self-taught. Her artistic awakening came in her mid-30s when she was living in Prince Albert, Sask. Her husband, Peter, was transferred there in 1972. She was an executive's wife and a mother of three and thought she might do some volunteering. She chose the art gallery. But it was when she started taking drawing courses at the Prince Albert Community College that the seeds of her own artistic practice were planted. One of her teachers, George Glenn, told her to stop painting mountainscapes and start making art about her life. Dyck protested that she was a homemaker. Surely this man wasn't suggesting she make art about laundry. But, in a way, he was. 'Then make art from that,' came the reply. So she did. Her children, with whom she was very close throughout her life, started noticing a change in their mother. 'We had a kitchen that had this one blank wall,' recalls her middle daughter, Deborah Dyck. 'I came home and she was throwing plaster at the wall. I went, 'This is new.' She was so passionate about it. It was wonderful.' Their late father was also incredibly supportive of their mother, who saw the world as a canvas. 'There weren't very many surfaces that mom wouldn't start altering,' adds her eldest son, Richard Dyck. 'This increased gradually and then sometimes controversially. Flowers started showing up on my toolboxes and tools…' '…and a certain car,' her youngest son, Michael Dyck, adds. This was back in Manitoba, where the family returned in 1976. Aganetha was managing the Big Buffalo Resort at Falcon Lake, and Deborah came out one day to use the car. 'And all of a sudden, mom just popped up on the opposite side of the car, and she had felt markers in her hand,' Deborah recalls. She'd decorated it like a 1960s hippie van, using rust spots as the flowers' centres. She was fearlessly experimental, and sometimes just fearless, period. When she was working on her canned buttons project, she'd boil them in pots of boiling oil in the yard at Falcon Lake. 'It seems a little out of character when I reflect on it now because we always had fondues for Christmas dinner, and mom was always worried about the oil catching fire on the fondue, and here she was out at the lake putting these plastic buttons into pots of boiling oil,' Michael recalls. 'And it was like fireworks going off. Some of the buttons would explode, and these buttons would go flying 30, 40 feet up in the air.' 'Different rules for the dinner table,' Richard says. Dyck's art practice began taking off. She had started making sculptural works out of Salvation Army sweaters she'd taken home and purposely shrunk. 'I've seen these — the WAG has some — these miniature, shrunken, felted sweaters become very anthropomorphic. They actually become people. It's so compelling,' Keshavjee says. In Dyck's hands, buttons were reimagined as jeweled jars of preserves; cigarettes, wire and wool became sculptures. Dyck's work soon caught the eye of Carol A. Phillips, former executive director of the Winnipeg Arts Council and then a curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina. Phillips gave Dyck her first solo show in 1976. Dyck was a huge believer in mentorship, as both a mentee and mentor. She is considered a 'founding foremother' of MAWA in 1985, and one of its original members. She was a mentor in the inaugural Foundation Mentorship Program that first year, and again in 1988, 1995, 2004, 2012 and 2014. 'Through MAWA, Aganetha provided years of formal mentorship, but she was so generous with her experience and so curious about and engaged with younger artists, she informally mentored countless more. And not just share her advice as an artist or her experience as an artist, she also was very open about her experience as a woman, as a parent, as a person in the world,' Dempsey says. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES Aganetha Dyck's work at an exhibition celebrating four decades of visual art education, community building, and peer support at Mentoring Artists for Womens Art (MAWA) in September 2024. Aganetha Dyck's work at an exhibition celebrating four decades of visual art education, community building, and peer support at Mentoring Artists for Womens Art (MAWA) in September 2024. Her mentorship spanned generations. Winnipeg painter Megan Krause, whose 1984 birth year puts her nearly 50 years younger than Dyck, was a mentee of Dyck's before becoming her studio assistant. Krause says that during her undergrad, her process was more rigid: she felt she needed a set theme and plan her canvasses ahead of time. 'Something I learned from her was just to play and see where it goes. I could get so paralyzed by not knowing where to start. She encouraged me to figure out the why later. Make a bunch of it and then, through that flow state, it will come,' Krause says. When they worked togther, Krause says, Dyck always prioritized the catch-up: 'First things first, we have to have coffee. We have to talk about life.' 'She was very humble, and so easy to talk to. She really was a really good friend of mine,' Krause says, her voice catching. Her kids remember her like this, too. A sounding board. They could tell her anything and be met with the same curiosity she brought to her art. 'There was no wall. I don't know how to explain it. It's just a very, very close connection,' Deborah says In the early 1990s, Dyck began her long collaborative relationship with the bees. She recognized that they were natural architects and wanted to work with them. WAYNE GLOWACKI / FREE PRESS FILES Souvenir Winnipeg Jets hockey stick and pucks covered in beeswax from Dyck's Sports Night in Canada. WAYNE GLOWACKI / FREE PRESS FILES Souvenir Winnipeg Jets hockey stick and pucks covered in beeswax from Dyck's Sports Night in Canada. She began working with Phil Veldhuis, a beekeeper and philosophy instructor whose Phil's Honey, a St. Norbert Farmers' Market staple, is based near Starbuck. Veildhuis recalls meeting the artist through the St. Norbert Arts Centre, where she was doing some work and he had been invited to keep some bees on the property. 'I think we had coffee and she told me what she wanted to do; I said it sounded like a ton of fun, and the rest is history,' he says. JULIE OLIVER / OTTAWA CITIZEN FILES Hive Scan by Aganetha and Richard Dyck appeared in the National Art Gallery of Canada's exhibition Flora and Fauna in 2012. JULIE OLIVER / OTTAWA CITIZEN FILES Hive Scan by Aganetha and Richard Dyck appeared in the National Art Gallery of Canada's exhibition Flora and Fauna in 2012. Dyck's work with the bees spanned decades, and led to residencies with beekeepers and entomologists in Europe; it was featured on David Suzuki's The Nature of Things TV series. But in 2009, her collaboration came to an end. Dyck had a strong reaction to a bee sting and returned to working with felt, but the legacy of her honeycomb-filigreed works is long-lasting, and has taken on added resonance as bee populations become more threatened. Dyck had an influence on Veldhuis, too. 'She got me to think about my bees in a very constructive way. I grew up in a beekeeping family and so, you know, bees are kind of just another day to us. To have someone come in and work who was so excited by it all was very stimulating to me,' he says. 'I'll never forget her excitement about opening a hive and watching the bees work.' Last year, Winnipeg visual artist Diana Thorneycroft posted on Facebook. 'There is a rumour circulating that Aganetha Dyck has passed away. When I told her about it, she couldn't stop laughing. Then she beat me at arm wrestling…' Thorneycroft and fellow artist Reva Stone were studio mates of Dyck's for decades. Stone was one of her first mentees. Her laugh is one of the things both are going to miss the most about her. That, and her eye — her discerning, out-of-the-box eye. Stone recalls taking a flight to New York with Dyck. 'We're on the plane. She looks out the window and says, 'Aren't those clouds beautiful?' And I say, 'Yeah, they really are.' She says, 'Wouldn't they look gorgeous on a doily?'' Thorneycroft also benefited from Dyck's eye. She was trying to make a sculpture using a plastic horse and Sculpey, a polymer clay, in her oven at home. 'Sculpey is supposed to harden at 250 degrees, but plastic melts at a much lower temperature, so one of the horses just collapsed and fell apart, and the Sculpey kind of broke. And I thought, 'Oh God, what a mess. What a mess.'' Thorneycroft brought the mess to her studio, and later found a note from Dyck: 'You've had a breakthrough.' 'We just loved her,' Thorneycroft says. 'It was easy. She's so easy to love.' Wednesdays Columnist Jen Zoratti looks at what's next in arts, life and pop culture. Jen ZorattiColumnist Jen Zoratti is a columnist and feature writer working in the Arts & Life department, as well as the author of the weekly newsletter NEXT. A National Newspaper Award finalist for arts and entertainment writing, Jen is a graduate of the Creative Communications program at RRC Polytech and was a music writer before joining the Free Press in 2013. Read more about Jen. Every piece of reporting Jen produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Ottawa Citizen
3 hours ago
- Ottawa Citizen
How Bluesfest became one of the best music festivals in Canada
Article content Mark Monahan, the co-founder and executive director of Bluesfest, found himself at this year's festival casting back a couple of decades to the event's four-year stint at Ottawa City Hall. Article content The sight of a baby at Bluesfest brought Monahan back to the festival's early days, when he and his wife, Reine, had a young family. At the time, their youngest (of four) daughters was about the same age as Harley. Article content Article content Article content For three decades, Ottawa Bluesfest has taken over the city for two weeks in July, featuring major concerts on multiple stages and attracting tens of thousands of music fans of all ages. Article content It has grown into one of the biggest summer music festivals in the country, generating a buzz for being well-organized, multi-generational and diverse — with a picturesque location on the grounds of the Canadian War Museum at LeBreton Flats Park, next to the Ottawa River. Article content The biggest shows this year saw crowds of 30,000 or more turn up for Green Day, Lainey Wilson and Hozier, and total attendance is expected to surpass 250,000 visitors. With all those people spending money on restaurants, services and often hotels, the economic impact for Ottawa-Gatineau is estimated to be in the neighbourhood of $40 million. Article content Article content Article content When the festival started in 1994, nothing much happened in the city in July. Colleges and universities were on summer break, Parliament was adjourned, and many Ottawa-area residents flocked to their cottages. Article content The addition of a blues festival to the July calendar was a welcome development, and prompted a flurry of media coverage during the slow summer news period. The low ticket price encouraged the curious to take a chance, and within a few years, Bluesfest was bursting at the seams. It moved several times in the early years, from Major's Hill Park to Confederation Park to city hall. It settled in its current location at LeBreton Flats Park in 2007.
Vancouver Sun
3 hours ago
- Vancouver Sun
How Bluesfest became one of the best music festivals in Canada
Mark Monahan, the co-founder and executive director of Bluesfest , found himself at this year's festival casting back a couple of decades to the event's four-year stint at Ottawa City Hall. The trigger? His first grandchild, 11-month-old Harley, was paying a visit. The sight of a baby at Bluesfest brought Monahan back to the festival's early days, when he and his wife, Reine, had a young family. At the time, their youngest (of four) daughters was about the same age as Harley. Back then, Monahan used to rent a hot tub for his on-site trailer compound, and the kids loved it. Get top headlines and gossip from the world of celebrity and entertainment. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sun Spots will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. 'We don't have the hot tub anymore,' he said, smiling at the memory, and clearly delighted to welcome a third generation to the festival family. 'But it feels like a full-circle moment.' For three decades, Ottawa Bluesfest has taken over the city for two weeks in July, featuring major concerts on multiple stages and attracting tens of thousands of music fans of all ages. It has grown into one of the biggest summer music festivals in the country, generating a buzz for being well-organized, multi-generational and diverse — with a picturesque location on the grounds of the Canadian War Museum at LeBreton Flats Park, next to the Ottawa River. The biggest shows this year saw crowds of 30,000 or more turn up for Green Day , Lainey Wilson and Hozier , and total attendance is expected to surpass 250,000 visitors. With all those people spending money on restaurants, services and often hotels, the economic impact for Ottawa-Gatineau is estimated to be in the neighbourhood of $40 million. But what is it about Ottawa that allowed Bluesfest to flourish? How did a government town come to host one of the biggest parties in the country? The answer lies in the combination of timing, talent and a multi-pronged connection to the community. When the festival started in 1994, nothing much happened in the city in July. Colleges and universities were on summer break, Parliament was adjourned, and many Ottawa-area residents flocked to their cottages. The addition of a blues festival to the July calendar was a welcome development, and prompted a flurry of media coverage during the slow summer news period. The low ticket price encouraged the curious to take a chance, and within a few years, Bluesfest was bursting at the seams. It moved several times in the early years, from Major's Hill Park to Confederation Park to city hall. It settled in its current location at LeBreton Flats Park in 2007. As it grew, the festival dealt with some serious setbacks, including an ill-fated attempt to expand to other Ontario cities in 2005, the tragic stage collapse in 2011, and the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 edition of the festival was called off because of the global health crisis, but a drive-in version of it took place that summer. Through it all, the festival's legions of volunteers remained its most steadfast supporters. The volunteer program started with 200 bodies in 1994; this year, volunteers numbered more than 2,300. 'Volunteers have always been some of our best ambassadors,' said Monahan, noting that about 70 per cent of them return year after year. One woman, Nicky Swift, was given an award last year to mark 30 years of Bluesfest volunteer service. When asked why they keep coming back, several volunteers who crossed my path this summer told me they liked meeting people and seeing concerts for free. Of course, Bluesfest is not free for most people to attend, but it's worth knowing your ticket dollars have a purpose beyond the festival operations and talent budget. The festival is a non-profit charitable organization, with a volunteer board of directors made up of local professionals and business owners from different walks of life. Its mandate as a charity is to bring music education to children and youths through the Blues in the Schools and Be in the Band programs . These programs not only help the festival cultivate new generations of live-music fans (and performers) but also build anticipation in the weeks leading up to the festival. Bluesfest's last day is devoted to showcasing the kids' hard work on the LeBreton stage, a finale that attracts dozens of family members and friends . Another factor that differentiates Ottawa's Bluesfest from other festivals is its commitment to local and regional artists. Monahan said a third of the acts on the program hail from the Montreal-Toronto-Ottawa triangle. 'They get treated like all the others,' Monahan said, 'and we have great reviews from them about how happy they are to play on a big stage and be treated so well.' Some of the homegrown highlights of this year's festival were the flute-forward funk band, Funk Yo Self, Gatineau's harmonious Leverage For Mountains, energetic pop-punk rockers We Were Sharks, the groovy duo of Dystoh and blues guitarist J.W.-Jones, who jumped in as a guest with a couple of other acts, too. In addition to the musical ambassadors, connections are forged with local sponsors, suppliers and businesses like Wall Sound, an Ottawa company which has been handling the technical specs for years. Many hours went into positioning the screens and sound gear this year to improve the audio and visuals throughout the main plaza, especially at the street zone on the Kichi Zibi Mikan parkway. And let's not overlook the programming. While most people buy tickets based on the main-stage headliners, there are always some great shows on the side stages and in the opening slots. This year's highlights included Father John Misty, the Decemberists and Men I Trust on the River stage, plus a terrific slate of blues programming on the LeBreton stage, along with intimate performances in the museum's dark, air-conditioned Barney Danson Theatre. 'We've always got something for everyone,' said Monahan, 'but this year was well-rounded, too. 'The level of attention to the whole lineup, from the regional acts to the mid-level to the side stages, is quite intense,' he added. 'We spent a year on this. We're not dropping something in and then doing another festival a month from now.' Because the festival runs smoothly and treats artists well, it has a good reputation in the industry, with credit to the efforts of 20 full-time staff members working out of the Bluesfest office. To make it a year-round job, the team also organizes Ottawa's CityFolk festival at Lansdowne Park in September, and the Festival of Small Halls. 'We have 173 years of collective experience just at this festival,' Monahan said. 'We have all of these ties to the community, and all of us have raised our families here.' Young Harley is testament to that, whether he grows up to be a volunteer, worker, musician or fan. lsaxberg@ We love where we live, and throughout the summer, we are running a series of stories that highlight what makes our community unique and special within Canada. Follow along with 'How Canada Wins' right here .
