Nelly Furtado @ BluesFest

Last week Alain and I went to see Nelly Furtado performing at BluesFest downtown. We didn't actually pay to go inside the venue (why bother when you can see the same show for free from the OTHER side of the fence), but we really enjoyed the show. Nelly put on a great performance (unlike Rhianna a few nights later.... See my next post) and I have to say that I'm impressed with the success of her current album. I didn't like Promiscuous too much before this show, but its definitely grown on me.

Here are some blurbs from the Ottawa Citizen review:

OTTAWA - She really should have been the headliner, but the sun was still shining brightly when Nelly Furtado took the Ottawa Bluesfest main stage to open for the more serious, spiritual likes of Live last night.

After all, who could have predicted Furtado's third album, the provocatively titled and marketed Loose, would explode in North America and the U.K? Reception to 2003's Folklore was lukewarm at best, and there is no way fans or concert bookers could have known the wunderkind who exploded onto the scene in 2001 would have such sexy tricks up her sleeve.

Though she seems to be wearing nothing but tank tops and hot pants these days, it was a relatively demure Furtado, in a knee-length blue dress, who took the stage in front of a jam-packed crowd.

Her clear, strong voice soared on a traditional version of Forca, the theme penned for the 2003 Euro Cup. She and the group also did a nice job of rearranging some of her other well-known songs to make them new for the crowd. That included giving breakthrough hit I'm Like A Bird a relaxed treatment; funking up Turn Out the Light and turning in a percussion-heavy version of the joyous tune Powerless (Say What You Want).