Britt Fest - Jacksonville, Oregon

Jo and I made it along to beautiful Jacksonville for an appearance by Eric Burdon and the Animals at Britt Fest (http://www.brittfest.org/), an event that runs every year from June to September. It was unseasonably wet and cool and Eric appeared wearing several layers, stripping them off one by one as the evening wore on. We were well wrapped up in waterproofs, ponchos and blankets, sitting on low-slung chairs on the lawn.

I was delighted to see that the support act was The Weight (http://www.theweightband.com/) - not so much a Band tribute act, but more a continuation of their legacy, as the group contains latter day members of the Band, the Levon Helm Band and those who played with Rick Danko and Richard Manuel. They played all of my favourites - Up on Cripple Creek, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Across the Great Divide, Stage Fright, Rag Mama Rag, The Shape I'm In and, of course, The Weight itself. Truly excellent - here they are:

The main man was next up. I'd been trying to see Eric for years, but kept missing him, so I was glad to catch up with him - before it's too late! His voice is still fairly strong, although he occasionally loses it a bit at either end of the range. He's white haired with a prominent, well-fed belly and doesn't move much - not even doing the thigh-slapping that he used to be famed for. Instead he patrols the stage and occasionally adds a bit of percussion.

The band opened with an extended version of Spill the Wine and initially he concentrated on material from the post-Animals, Eric Burdon and the Animals period, including When I was Young and Monterey and also Randy Newman's Mama Told Me Not To Come, which I had forgotten he did first, before Three Dog Night covered it in 1970.

He did Ledbelly's In the Pines (as he called it) and also Bo Diddley Special, before moving on to some familiar Animals' material like Inside Looking Out, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, House of the Rising Sun (of course) and Don't Bring Me Down, squeezing in a slightly strange and belated tribute to David Bowie with a version of Space Oddity that was interspersed with his own Sky Pilot - check it out on this video - https://youtu.be/q92NuCxSTxo.

His main set closed - naturally - with We've Gotta Get Out of this Place, then encored with Ian Dury's Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick and the Animals' It's My Life, followed by a Sam and Dave number (I've forgotten which one - probably Hold On, I'm Coming).

Here's a couple of photos of him in action: