In a quarter of a century, Blues Alive has evolved from a small local show into a respected international event. This is evidenced by the most prestigious award in this area of music, the title Keeping The Blues Alive Award, which the organizers received in 2019.
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It must be stated that all this time all expectations were met. The well-known British singer Pat Fulgoni, the well-known British singer Pat with the Blues Experience band, was among the first on the opening night of Thursday to play blues-rock certainties such as Purple Haze or Crossroads.
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Let’s also mention the honest jazz-blues The Bruce Katz Band with guest Giles Robson and the main star Thursday Lil’Ed Williams with the band The Blues Imperials. The brilliant sixty-six-year-old slide guitarist delighted fans of orthodox blues in particular and took care of the culmination of a juicy jam session with the musicians who were on stage in front of him that evening.
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One of the big surprises of Friday night was the young Prague trio Foxy Mama. They were brought to the stage by the victory in the Blues Aperitif in 2020, for which they were rewarded with dynamically convincing music, played with absolute ease and strong feeling.
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On the second evening, the traditional moderator of the festival, Marek Hlavica, also picked up the singing microphone. He began his performance with a distinctive track Led Zeppelin Trampled Under Foot, untraditionally arranged for a dulcimer, and a multi-member well-pedaling funkyblues backing band Full Flavor Orchestra. Apart from a minor defect in beauty, when the band did not agree slightly on one of the songs, it was a captivating performance. It was closed by Hlavic’s Czech version of Dylan’s ballad Make You Feel My Love.
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Friday’s top show can be clearly the animal show of American accordion player Rick Estrin and his great band The Nightcats.
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Final with John Primer
The leitmotif of this year’s edition was the name of the recent 80-year-old Bob Dylan. In addition to accompanying concerts and discussions on Dylan themes, musician and dylanologist Elijah Wald, the author of the book Dylan, went into electrics! Drummer Winston Watson then personally presented his documentary about playing with Bob Dylan in 1992-1996 and also sat behind the drums in the expansion of the Livin ‘Free line-up at a great Saturday afternoon Dylan concert.
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Even Saturday night was, musically speaking, charged to bursting. In addition to the traditionalist excursion of the mentioned Elijah Wald, the performer Ten Years Arter Marcus Bonfanti or the forty-five-year-old California guitarist and singer Kirk Fletcher gave great performances.
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The charismatic 70-year-old Chicago guitarist and singer John Primer and his band The Real Deal Blues Band took on the honorary task of closing the 25th edition of Blues Alive. Although firmly rooted in the blues tradition, he confirmed to the enthusiastic audience that this music is still alive, breathing, pulsating and exciting.
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It is worth noting that the next year will take place from 17 to 19 November 2022, the main stars will be John Smith, Popa Chuba and Ana Popovic. At the moment when the last chord of this year ended, the first hundred tickets were sold for the next year in the already started pre-sale.
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