The Thunder Bay Blues Festival usually has a few twists and turns for music fans to chew on.
The summer of 2012 is no different.
This year’s headliners combine a mixture of youthful enthusiasm, a legendary bluesman, his equally talented wife and nine of their closest friends, and a rock radio giant just waiting to blast the Bay with a set list full of ‘70s and ‘80s favourites.
“We’ve got another strong set of headliners for presentation,” said Thunder Bay Community Auditorium general manager Bob Halvorsen, launching the lineup.
“This year we have on Friday night Jonny Lang. On Saturday, July 7 we have the Tedeschi Trucks Band coming in and on Sunday, rounding out the festival, 38 Special will be playing.”
It’s something for everyone at the top of the bill, he added
“We’ve got everything from guitar players to horn players to harp players to keyboard players, something for every musical taste,” Halvorsen said.
The undercard is none too shabby for that matter, one of the deepest in the festival’s 11-year history. Lang, for example, specifically asked to follow Joe Louis Walker on Friday night, prompting speculation the guitar slinger might join one of his idols on stage for an early collaboration.
The Royal Southern Brotherhood is another band that, though not well known, features some pretty good musical bloodlines, staring with Devon Allman, the son of Greg Allman, Cyrill Neville of the Neville Brothers and Mike Zito, who played here two summers ago.
“They are a bit of a super group who we are very excited about,” said the Auditorium’s Trevor Hurtig.
Off course, Allman has close ties to Derek Trucks of the Tedeschi Trucks Band, who played with his famous father in the Allman Brothers Band.
“Derek Trucks is also Eric Clapton’s slide guitarist,” Hurtig reminded.
The three local acts chosen to play the festival are Trevor Potts and Ten Miles of Bad Road, The Chain and Rodney Brown and the Derailers.
Other notable acts include Canadian icon Sass Jordan, slide guitarist Sonny Landreth and Shannon Curfman, lead guitarist for Kid Rock.
Tickets, for the festival, which made a modest $27,000 profit for charity last year, go on sale Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m. at the Auditorium box office. The first 200 tickets sold will be accmpanied with a free ticket to George Thorogood's May 29 Thunder Bay show. Online sales are not available.
Friday, July 6
Jonny Lang
Joe Louis Walker
Sass Jordan
Trevor Potts & Ten Miles of Bad Road
Saturday, July 7
Tedeschi Trucks Band
Scrapomatic
Royal Southern Brotherhood
Popa Chubby
Monkey Junk
Honey Island Swamp Band
Matt "Mojo" Tedder
Big Walter Smith
The Chain
Sunday, July 8
.38 Special
Sonny Landreth
Tyler Bryant
Kelley Hunt
Sugar Blue
Shannon Curfman
J P Soars
Rodney Brown and the Derailers
