Lethbridge hosted a Canadian blues legend and nobody, save for maybe a dozen people were there to hear him, Jan 9 at the Slice.
Luckily Big Dave McLean and drummer Brendan Nagle didn’t mind the poor turnout.
They schooled the enthusiastic audience on first generation Delta blues focusing on the music of the masters like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Bukka White and one or two of his own songs during his set which began at 9:30 p.m. and ended just before midnight.
As much as I love listening to Big Dave belt out the classics, slapping out extra rhythm and crazy harmonics on his National steel guitar and playing some spooky slide, I wanted to hear a few more of his originals.
He had a great song about his crooked mechanic in the second set which stood out. He alternated between his old National Steel and a vintage 1958 National electric guitar he bought from Tim Williams.
He showed several sides of his favourite blues legends by playing both faster and sweeter, slower versions of several Robert Johnson songs. He told stories about their lives and deaths which is always entertaining. He talked about playing with Muddy Waters early in his career.
He ended with a couple more obscure blues classics like Barbecue Bob’s ‘Atlanta Boll Weevils’ and blues standard ‘Crossroad.’
The upside of having few people at the show, is I got to fulfill a lifelong dream — playing on stage with Big Dave McLean.
If there had been more people in the audience, there would have probably been more guitarists in the audience — better ones than me — and I might not have got the chance.
But somehow he found out I played guitar and called me up to the stage to open the second set with an old Howling Wolf number, which I can’t name as I was too busy paying attention to the chord changes he walked me through in between playing harp. I just hope I did the song justice. It was an honour and a privilege for me as playing with Muddy Waters was to Big Dave McLean as playing with Big Dave McLean is to me. He was patient and understanding and I was a little star stuck and as usual had horrible stage fright. So I’ll blame that for a few muffed notes.
The rest of the second set was exceptional.
He played a cool version of Tom Waits’ ‘Get Behind the Mule’ as he quipped ‘there are a lot of words in that song.’
He also played more blues classics including ‘Sweet Home Chicago’ and ‘Hoochie Coochie Man.’
He ended the show just before midnight by revisiting a Muddy Waters song ‘I Feel Like Going Home’ which he played in the first set ‘before most of you got here.’
He and Brendan Nagle called it a night with a hot version of ‘Over Yonder Wall.’
In my darker moments, I’m almost ready to give up on this scene. It seems lately you pretty much have to go door to door and drag people forcibly out of their homes and out to shows.
A cat like Big Dave McLean deserves an audience of at least 2012 instead of 12. I do my bit. I had an interview with him on L.A. Beat and in the Sun Times and plugged it on my radio show. So either people aren’t paying attention or they just don’t care. Or maybe they have lives outside of music unlike me.
Luckily cats like Big Dave are really good sports about playing to a handful of people. It is only a matter of time before people stop coming to play here. Then there truly will be nothing to do in Lethbridge.
