{"id":684360,"date":"2026-05-21T15:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/684360\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T15:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:08:09","slug":"five-must-see-acts-at-ottawa-bluesfest-2026-%e2%94%82-exclaim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/684360\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Must-See Acts at Ottawa Bluesfest 2026 \u2502 Exclaim!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Always one of the biggest festivals of the summer, Ottawa Bluesfest<\/a> is returning from July 9 to 19<\/a>, bringing the usual parade of A-list acts to LeBreton Flats.<\/p>\n

For this year’s must-see acts, we’ve dug a little deeper than headliners like Limp Bizkit, Gwen Stefani and the Guess Who (and also Angine de Poitrine, who aren’t a headliner but have blown up so big that they easily could be).<\/p>\n

Instead, here are five must-see acts from the fest’s deep undercard, including Billy Bragg and Elisapie (pictured above). Tickets for the festival are on sale now; find more information at Ottawa Bluesfest’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Billy Bragg<\/a>
Mr. Love & Justice himself has been singing protest songs for more than 40 years, and he’s kept up with the times, with recent songs addressing ICE<\/a> and Palestine<\/a>. Expect political storytelling that always keeps an emphasis on compassion.<\/p>\n

Digable Planets<\/a>
Digable Planets have been carving out their own space for outsider alternative hip-hop since before most of today’s rappers were born. Come pay respect to the trailblazers.<\/p>\n

Elisapie<\/a>
One of the most quietly radical covers albums in recent memory, Elisapie’s Inuktitut presents faithful, folksy versions of rock-canon classics sung in the titular Inuit language.<\/p>\n

Luna Li<\/a>
Toronto pop dreamweaver Hannah Bussiere Kim has turned prominent opening gigs into a thriving music career<\/a>, and Bluesfest is just the latest in a long line of big-name bills she has earned a place on.<\/p>\n

Leif Vollebekk<\/a>
While his songwriting is thoughtful and refined, singer-songwriter Leif Vollebekk’s live performances highlight the virtuosic skill of his guitar and piano playing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Always one of the biggest festivals of the summer, Ottawa Bluesfest is returning from July 9 to 19,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":684361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-684360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/684361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}