he festival was fun, but the music by Blues Traveler that accompanied it was better.

Last Saturday, the Gallivan Events Center hosted the "Bite of Salt Lake" food festival, which allowed everyone from tiny-tots to exceedingly old people to come out and play. While the recent Utah heat makes you wonder whether or not you’ve woken up in Hell on a daily basis, the activities and food at the Events Center distracted from such irritations.

But Blues Traveler really made the night entertaining and peaceful, inspiring everyone to laugh and dance.

The festival was filled with little stands featuring food items from various Salt Lake City restaurants. Though the food smelled great, I refused to buy anything, because I realized that I could have physically gone to any one of those restaurants and purchased a large meal for much less than the miniature samples featured at the festival. Food aside, the music provided was the real draw.

People were dancing with little kids bouncing on their shoulders, old women were getting drunk and dancing in freak-nasty ways that I would rather not remember and hippy-type people were getting high while punks sported their spikes and bobbed their heads to the bluesy tunes.

Everyone responded to the band positively. The ability of Blues Traveler’s members to cause this reaction in such a diverse crowd attests to their talent. Most of the songs were really long and contained more instrumental/jam sequences than vocals.

These sequences were what truly revealed the band’s blues attributes. John Popper’s harmonica playing are nothing short of amazing. How one man can blow into a piece of metal and create those kinds of sounds I will never understand, but he forces everyone to just stare in awe.

Blues Traveler's newly slimmed-down John Popper probably didn't eat much at the "Bite of Salt Lake" festival.

The only experience that I have previously had of actually seeing the band occurred many years ago when MTV was still showing that ridiculously annoying show, "FANatic." Yes, I watched it on occasion, and one of those times happened to be when the Blues Traveler met two of their "Number One Fans," who happened to be an engaged couple, and like a fairytale ending, graced the couple with a surprise performance at their wedding! I knew what frontman Popper looked like, which was why I was totally shocked to see him, live, in Salt Lake City, looking an ungodly amount of pounds thinner.

My first thought of the band had to be something superficial, like, "Whoa! He has lost so much weight! That is so good!" I couldn’t help it. Even the most ignorant Blues Traveler individual knows that Popper has never been known for his slim figure. I saw him first-hand and he looked great. He and his fellow bandmates seemed genuinely happy to be in Salt Lake City, playing at a measly food festival.

The crowd really made the show fun. Popper spoke every now and then between songs, and much of what he said was rather goofy, making him look like a nerd with a harmonica—a nerd who also happens to have a really different, yet strangely appealing voice. The crowd loved him, and they loved his dorky jokes.

The songs were fun and catchy. After seeing the band perform, I am looking forward to its new CD, What You and I have Been Through, which will be released on Aug. 5. The band knows a lot about having fun—and even more about singing the blues.
autumn@red-mag.com