Sound Opinion Reviews Downsview Park: 07/01/07
Sound Opinion Reviews Downsview Park: 07/01/07
Pat the White Band
I had never heard of them before, but after hearing their set I was convinced that these guys must have been around for a while. I found out later that Pat and his group have played many major festivals in Canada. Their experience showed in their set, to be sure.
I was surprised to hear another blues band at the festival, but Pat the White Band was a very different kind of blues, Pat the White Band were more like the Allman Brothers.
Pat’s voice was perfectly fitting during the portions of the songs that required his traditionally influenced blues-rock vocals. The whole band sounded like touring veterans when the songs delved into jam territory. Pat’s guitar solos during the jams were impressive and extended, but never self-indulgent or too lengthy.
Another factor that made Pat the White Band’s set so strong was that the solos, and the returns to the structured parts of the songs, were never jarring; every passage in the set flowed naturally into the next one.
If the performance was missing anything, it was a little more variety in tempos and tones between the different songs. There was, though, a great deal of variety between the different passages within the songs.
At the end of the day (literally and figuratively), Pat Leblanc and his group gave the afternoon’s overall strongest set.