Portland OR: Waterfront Blues

Already into 3 months in Portland. Living a couple blocks from Tom McCall Waterfront park and the bank of the Willamette River (bisects Portland). This weekend great blues festival on the river. The Waterfront Blues Festival is in its 21st year and benefits the Portland food bank--so part of visitor admission includes two cans of food as a contribution.

The performances run back to back all weekend long. I actually thought we'd be able to hear the music from the apartment, but there's too many obstructions in the way. However, we had a great view of the fireworks last night from the apt--amazing and unexpected--didn't think we'd see a thing then they were suddenly right there.

Portland Blues Festival

We spent most of Saturday afternoon and evening soaking up all manner of Blues music and engaging in some seriously excellent people-watching. Performers take one of five different stages located along the waterfront and one on a cruise boat. Front Porch Stage located at the far north end of the event featured Zydeco bands. Because neither of us had ever had the opportunity to hear much Zydeco we stuck close to this area.

We really enjoyed Chris Ardoin, Rosie Ledet, and Cedryl Ballou and the Zydeco Trendsetters.

Even better, Front Porch stage is a smaller venue, much less trafficked and setup with rows of aluminum benches. We could grab a great seat.

Plenty of opps for buying performer cds, plus all the festival merchandise you could want, blues music souvenirs, etc.

WBF Blog

One thing disappointed me: the WBF Blog. Before we set out yesterday I pulled up the blog--I expected a blow-by-blow first hand account of the festival, festival goers, a bit of the sights, sounds and flavors, but instead I found it stagnant. The last post was entered on June 11th nearly a month ago. Here's the thing, official event photographers roam throughout the event snapping noteworthy photos for some publication I'm sure. And on the Front Porch side stage I saw a young woman scribbling notes, as well, maybe for a press piece. So why not a blogger? Okay great way to keep event goers on the edge of their seats in advance of the event, but what a missed opportunity to excite others (like me) via the festival blog. Blog--regularly updated and features the most up-to-the-minute, as it's happening thoughts, events, etc. Too bad this languished.

Official Waterfront Blues Festival website provides almost all the information a visitor needs to know.