Blues show to provide party atmosphere in Summerside

Blues show to provide party atmosphere in Summerside

Ryan Quigley

Journal Pioneer

SUMMERSIDE- The P.E.I. Jazz and Blues festival is holding a concert in Summerside on Wednesday night at the Shipyard Market.

The “Vector Blues Bash” is going to feature a local act, the West End Blues band, who are a staple of “Blues Night at the Wing” at the #200 Wing AFAC and 2010 ECMA Blues Recording of the Year winners the Hupman Brothers.

Both blues bands have strong followings, which makes the P.E.I. Jazz and Blues Festival Chairperson Doug Millington think it will be a huge event.

“There’s going to be a really nice range of styles presented.”

The P.E.I. Jazz and Blues festival lasts seven days and has over 30 performances.

There has been a concert in Summerside the last two years. Millington said the first one wasn’t a huge success, but the second one was.

“(The first year) we didn’t do probably the best job at promoting it,” he said. “Last year was a totally different event. It was right on the shipyard with kind of a bar setting with cabaret seating and was very well attended. I think everyone enjoyed the music.”

Millington said this year they’re hoping for more of the same.

“In the Shipyard it was kind of more of a party and that’s more what we were after anyway. It’s going to be more or less like that again this year.”

Millington described the West End Blues as “a really good blues band that could hold their own on any stage,” and said the Hupman Brothers were, “a contemporary approach to the legacy of early blues.”

Millington said, “there is nothing I would like better” than to bring a second show to Summerside for the festival.

“If the attendance warrants it, then well yeah, expanding in Summerside would only make sense.”

The city is an important part of the festival, said Millington.

“Summerside has demonstrated through the Blues Night at the Wing that there is an audience for other kinds of music,” he said. “This expands people’s palettes a bit and Summerside has shown there is a taste for that.”

Tickets for the event are $15 and the concert starts at 8 p.m.