Wildfire Reviews: Best moments of Telluride Blues and Brews Festival, Friday and Saturday, A-

Above: Tarps and chairs on Friday, September 13 at the 30th Annual Telluride Blues and Brews

This past weekend, Telluride celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Blues and Brews festival. The festival saw a handful of new up and coming blues artists that graced the stage for the first time, and some that have been there many times. The highlight of the festival was during Friday afternoon when Eric Gales performed.

Eric Gales was excellent. He had unlimited energy that seemed to carry over from his pre festival show at the Sheridan the night before. His guitar playing and singing matched what modern-day blues sounds like today. He mentioned several times about blues music and it's no doubt that he's become one of the great recent classic musicians.

Of course, Samantha Fish is always fantastic live and, on her 7th Bluesfest appearance, she was one of the best performers at the festival. She truly makes every performance special with her fantastic looks and incredible guitar playing. It was one of the first times we've heard Fish perform one of her first clovers, "I Put A Spell On You", and she also performed several older fish classics, especially at her after party at the Blues Stage. It was great hearing some older songs from her album 'Chills and Fever" at the after party and even older records. By now, everyone living in Telluride has probably seen Fish more than once, and she seems to love playing that venue and city because almost every year, she's back.

Gary Clark JR was average, but still a good performance Friday night as the headliner.

However, the best headliner of both Friday and Saturday was no doubt Ben Harper, who performed on Saturday night. His slide guitar skills are equal to Robert Randolph and others, and his singing was fantastic throughout his set.

One of the other highlights of the festival was the beer tastings. While they were all sold out, if you had the chance to be at one of them, there was over two dozen breweries across the nation sharing their tasty beverages all weekend. It was great mixing the beer with the music.

Some of the negative aspects of the festival concert goers complained about this year was the actual line up itself. Compared to last year and the year before, there just wasn't a solid jaw dropping lineup that included any legends headlining like The Roots or Bonnie Raitt. Some folks complained there was the absence of Anders Osbourne, who plays the festival almost every year and after parties. Most of the opening bands many concert goers never heard of, but most people were there for the festival itself and the experience of being in Telluride for the 30th anniversary.

The Telluride Blues and Brews Festival wasn't perfect this year and had its ups and downs just like any other festival, but it was a fun event none the less and absolutely worth going to.

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Photos by Leo Pareti: