WHAT’S GOING ON: Comments on an Edmonton Events List, Whither YEG Live?
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May 19: Just for Laughs with Rick Mercer and more, Jubilee Auditorium
Excellent comedy featuring some of Canada’s finest improvisers
May 19: Avril Lavigne, Rogers Place
Pay attention to this artist. Why, you ask? Read old unhinged essay on Avril Lavigne’s songs here:
May 21-22: Beaches (photo above), Midway
Hear this band on the radio all the time
June 4-5: Cheremosh Ukrainian dance, Jube
Support! Do you feel confused when you see a vehicle festooned with flags – Oilers, Ukraine, or good old free-dumb Canadian? One doesn’t know whether to flip the bird or give a thumb’s up.
June 10: Primus, Edmonton Expo Centre
Amazing extremely weird and unique band doing a Rush tribute
June 13: Our Lady Peace, Winspear
Canadian classic still up to interesting things, wonderful venue
June 18: Trevor Noah “Back to Abnormal,” Rogers
Always hilarious, engaging, expected to be topical
June 24-25: Garth Brooks, Commonwealth Stadium
Did he really say that doing two shows instead of one in Edmonton is like having two bowls of ice cream?
June 21-July 10: Hamilton, Jube
Hit musical hits the road
June 23: Glorious Sons, Expo Centre
Another great band we hear on the radio all the time, Sonic at least
Brave new worlds
June 27: Russell Peters, Rogers
Always a huge hit
Eeeeee!
Crotchety Boomer retreads one of the most impressive song catalogues in rock ‘n’ roll
July 28: Alanis Morissette, Rogers
She’s back!
July 28-July 31: Big Valley Jamboree, Camrose, with Tim McGraw and many more
Yeehaw!
Oh, yeah
They own the radio
One of the best live bands around
Aug 11-21: Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival, details TBA
Best festival in Edmonton, hands down
Second year in a row for an event that started during – and because of – the pandemic
Aug 17: Metric, Convention Centre
Another Canadian classic still doing good things
Same producers as the Great Outdoors Comedy Festival (and the Big Valley Jamboree), this event managed to do a socially distanced outdoor music festival last year. May we be close again?
Aug 19-21: Edmonton Blues Festival, Hawrelak Park
Super chill event featuring the finest in curated blues, plus beer
Aug 26, Backstreet Boys, Rogers
Eeeeee! [at a lower pitch]
Aug 28: RuPaul’s Drag Race, Jube
As seen on TV
Aug 30-Sept 4: Come From Away musical, Jube
Set in the week after 9/11
Killer live show expected from the Pope of Prog
Sept 17: Rod Stewart with Cheap Trick, Rogers
More excited about the opening act
Oct 12-13: Styx with Nancy Wilson’s Heart, Jube
Heart minus Ann? Please explain
Nov 12: Three Days Grace, Edmonton Convention Centre
Another solid Canadian band, still a terrible venue
They always do two shows at the Jube, nice venue
Shaggy Saskatchewanians return to the clubs
Millennial favourite
Mar 12, 2023: Juno Awards, Rogers
First time here since 2004
Mar 15, 2023: Rage Against the Machine, Rogers
It’s about goddamned time!
NOTE: This is NOT a complete list.
And there’s your problem.
In the neverending thankless task of compiling the live entertainment events in Edmonton, YEG Live seemed to do the best job of all – striving to list every single goddamned event on any given weekend, also offering print and ticket resale services. Sadly the site currently appears to be bunk, its owner off to whereabouts unknown. Any news source that depended exclusively on live entertainment was effectively shut down during the pandemic. GigCity is only now crawling from the proverbial post-apocalyptic rubble. Here’s the joke: The only thing more useless than an entertainer is an entertainment critic.
Of other resources that still cover the Edmonton live entertainment scene, Bars N Bands survived! These guys boast extensive lists of musical events around Western Canada (even the jams that allegedly cheapen and exploit musicians). Taproot Edmonton does a fine, serious job listing almost everything happening in town in a given month, including art shows and poetry readings. So it’s a long list, but only for that month. Pollstar, which was dormant for a while, keeps track of every major event in every city in the world, more or less, but it misses most of the smaller shows, and is sometimes inaccurate.
And for local live theatre, there is no better source than Liz Nicholls, 30-plus year theatre critic of the Edmonton Journal still thriving on her blog, 12thnight.ca.
This is also not a complete list.
Trying to list every single live event (or live ent blog) in Edmonton at all times is frustrating.
Because there’s so much of it, you simply can’t catch everything – and that’s a good problem to have.
