Three years ago, days after they moved to town, former Hidden Heroes Bill Lucas and his wife, Val, had a dream. They dreamed of creating a thriving Blues scene in Nanaimo focused around an annual Summer Blues Festival.

One by one, attracted by Bill’s high octane energy, others bought into the dream and the support expanded to more than 50 active volunteers, Hidden Heroes all, who have seen the festival grow from Saturdays through July and August in 2005 to every Saturday and Sunday through August in 2006 and now in 2007, a truly focused festival every day of the week from August 17th to the 26th. There will be more free blues performances this year during this ten day period than there were last year during all of the August weekends.

As usual there will be free concerts on both weekends but this year the weekend performers will also be booked into pubs, clubs and lounges through the week. Many of them will also be leading blues workshops while they are in town.

This year’s free festival will also offer a number of exciting new features. First there will be non-stop music because the society has been able to secure a second stage. Also thanks to a Canada Council Grant, the festival will present the First Nations Blues Showcase featuring Canada’s best First Nations Blues acts on Saturday August 25. But perhaps most exciting of all, is the new indoor blues facility, The Blues Underground, near the China Steps.

But let me back up a step. The Nanaimo Blues Society has grown mightily over the past three years. Thanks to exceptional support from local businesses, especially downtown business people, and the City of Nanaimo, the society now sponsors four blues dances each year as well as a youth program called Cookin with the Blues at Nanaimo Youth Services. The volunteers have also begun to offer more widespread support to the community. Perhaps the best example is the Gospel Choir concert they sponsored a few months ago at St. Andrew’s United Church where they raised $5,000 for the church’s renovation fund.

Now let’s get back to the Blues Underground. Perhaps Tom Dodge’s dream of a year or so ago was as strong as Bill Lucas’ original dream of a blues festival. Tom dreamt of being able to manifest a location where the Nanaimo Blues Society could offer local musicians and “wanna bees” a space where they could gather, jam, rehearse and organize workshops; a place that would make music, especially blues music, more accessible for young and old alike.

After a tenacious search, Tom was able to find the space they now call The Blues Underground, which is located just off the China Steps in the heart of the Red Zone.

“I want to turn the Red Zone blue,” Tom says with a grin as wide as most garage doors.

Thanks to the work of dozens of society volunteers, walls have been torn down and others built along with a stage. The entire 4,000 square foot space has also been newly painted and the floor amazingly reconditioned.

In short it’s a perfect space for the Blues and now it’s up and running. The first workshop, a blues harmonica workshop, was held last weekend.

I asked Tom why he has put in hundreds of volunteer hours to make his dream a reality. His answer was brief and to the point.

“If you want a better world,” he smiled, “you’ve got to do something to help make it the way you want it to be. It benefits each of us to make the person standing beside us a little happier because then we we’ll all be living in a better world.”

Spoken like a true Hidden Hero.