Lukas Nelson greets fans following his set

Lukas Nelson & The Promise Of The Real
Ottawa Bluesfest
Ottawa, Canada
July 8

With a quiet intensity and a nod to the sparse crowd gathered before the stage at Ottawa Bluesfest, Lukas Nelson didn’t waste any time waiting for more people to show up – he simply blew the hats off those people who had gathered in the sunshine to watch the son of a legend perform some very un-Willie-Nelson-like material.

Where Willie’s melancholy warble was the focus of his music, Lukas lets his guitar do the heavy lifting, and heavy it is. Hard driving, frantic and loud, Nelson sounds like more like the latest incarnation of southern rock, a Lynyrd Skynyrd/Allman Brothers/Black Crowes thunderclap, as opposed to the lilting surf-rock he was raised around in Hawaii and California.

With the hot July sun shining right in his eyes and the sweat beading on his forehead, Lukas didn’t sugarcoat anything. However, he did manage to showcase some diversity in his short set, and gave his band mates some room to breathe as well, especially Promise of the Real’s very talented bassist, Corey McCormick. His anchor baselines often took centre stage as Nelson went on wild, raucous jaunts on stage and along the neck of his guitar, jumping off amps and risers and losing more buttons on his shirt as the show went on.

Coming out rocking with a long, technical jam off the new album, Wasted, “Don’t Take Me Back” got the crowd warmed up before Nelson busted out a couple older tunes off the band’s self-titled 2007 debut, POTR. “Four Letter Word” and “Ain’t No Answer” cranked it up a notch before Nelson, learning his way as a stage musician, turned down the intensity and showcased his soft-spoken, folkier side. A calm and collected take on “No Place to Fly,” which he recorded with his dad, led into a heartfelt “Fathers and Mothers” that is clearly a very important and meaningful song to Lukas.

Closing out this set’s bridge, so to speak, he electrified the crowd with a stirring rendition of “Amazing Grace” a la Jimmy Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock. As if teasing Pink Floyd’s “Time” in an instrumental wasn’t enough, Lukas and POTR busted into the Stones’ instantly recognizable “Sympathy for the Devil” and closed the show on that point, leaving me hanging and hoping for a rendition of Wasted that was not to come. In another ode to Jimmy, he played a significant guitar solo with his teeth and had the crowd roaring with appreciation for his considerable skills and showmanship.

All told the performance certainly left the crowd anticipating Lukas Nelson & The Promise Of The Real’s Canadian tour in September opening for John Fogerty.