MUSIC PREVIEW: Walk Off the Earth on a Fast Run to the Top
Generally referred to as an “indie band,” Burlington, Ontario’s Walk Off the Earth finds influences and inspirations from all manners of music, with virtually no limits on what they might pull out of the musicsphere to craft their material – from more traditional guitars, bass, and drums, to banjos, glockenspiels, ukuleles, and even a theremin. […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Shinedown, you crazy diamond
Florida act Shinedown blitzkriegs through the city Friday night as part of their “Attention Attention” World Tour, supporting their 2018 album of the same name. A concept album, it finds an individual in the throes of negativity and charts their course to becoming reborn as a new and positive one. The alt-hard rock band was […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Rocketman’s farewell hottest ticket in Edmonton
Sir Elton John rolls into town this weekend in the midst of his three-year, 300-plus date Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. At Rogers Place for a two-nighter Friday and Saturday, the legendary Rocketman had a slew of successive hit singles in the 1970s and 1980s, including Crocodile Rock, Daniel, Pinball Wizard, Don’t Go Breaking My […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Indie star Lissie stars at the Starlite Room
From her home base on her farm in Iowa, Lissie has become an indie sensation. The Indiana-born country-folk artist seen every one of her first four studio albums grab a spot in the top 15 of the US Folk chart, and the last two have accomplished the same feat on the US Indie chart. Many […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Maiden tour named for video game
The legendary Iron Maiden are in town Friday as part of the North American portion of their “Legacy Of the Beast” Tour, which shares the name of a mobile game the group released in 2016. The turn-based RPG game features Iron Maiden’s infamous mascot Eddie; players collect combatants and fight infernal foes. The band’s last […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Edmonton Rocks
This weekend is punctuated by the 2019 edition of the Edmonton Rock Music Festival, which traditionally falls on the weekend after folk fest. The organizers are known for bringing in some of the best classic rock artists of all time, particularly in the Canadian vein, and often those who don’t tour regularly anymore but save […]
WEEKEND MUSIC: Storm before the storm
This weekend, the city finds itself in the relatively calm eye of a musical summer hurricane – after being buffeted with both the esteemed Interstellar Rodeo and the rampaging frenzy of Chaos AB last weekend. Then of course the world-renowned Folk Music Festival is coming up, then the Fringe. Before the eye wall hits us […]
WEEKEND MUSIC PREVIEW: Backstreet is back and it is all right
All the dance moves. All the hits. The 1990’s boy band to end all boy bands, the Backstreet Boys, still has all the mojo you could imagine, and they’re entering the second leg of their world tour, now intent on recapturing the hearts of their North American fans. They play Rogers Place (8pm, $110 and […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Founds Grounds Abounds
Two of the city’s most extraordinary promoters, Double Lunch Productions and Sweaty Palms, have joined forces to put on an epic series of shows called the Found Grounds Music Series at the Backstage Theatre (Old Strathcona Arts Barns), during the city’s Found Festival. Friday’s show is perhaps the pinnacle with Jessica Jalbert. She is of […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Festival season begins!
It’s a big weekend for festivals, but none in town are bigger than the Edmonton International Jazz Festival, which gets underway Friday. Once again the organizers have done a stellar job attracting a magnificent array of talent in a vast variety of sub-genres and instrumentation from around the world. You might think they’ve put together […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Surf in Turf
Thursday night finds Australia’s Ocean Alley performing at Station On Jasper. The Australian psych-reggae-surf band has gained a lot of popularity and critical acclaim in their home nation, and are now hoping to explore the world, buoyantly looking to expand their sonic reach. Led by vocalist-guitarist Baden Donegal, the band formed in 2011, and has […]
WEEKEND MUSIC: A match made in folk music heaven
Imagine, if you will, two of Western Canada’s most outstanding folk artists on tour together. Then imagine if they decided that instead of doing separate sets, one opening for the other, they’d play on each other’s songs, together. It’s not The Twilight Zone. It just what Michael Bernard Fitzgerald and J. J. Shiplett have decided […]
