Witness to a Conga a dramatic dance
Teatro La Quindicina programs its season to run counter to the rest of the theatrical pack. And so this week, as others begin their seasons, Teatro has chosen to close off their first year in their spiffy new Varscona theatre with an old favourite from the canon of writer-director Stewart Lemoine, Witness to a Conga. […]
Curious Incident a chilling transport to autistic mind
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a multi-level theatrical adventure that insists on you becoming part of the experience. Opening the Citadel’s season on the Shoctor Stage until Oct. 9, the play is based on Mark Haddon’s bestseller about an autistic teen, and transposed into theatrical terms by playwright Simon Stephens. […]
Simon and Garfunkel Story stuck in the pleasant
Tom and Jerry will be holding forth on the stage of the Mayfield Dinner Theatre for the next seven weeks – at least that’s the name childhood friends Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel gave themselves back in 1957 when they were breaking into the music business by trying to sound like the Everly Brothers. It […]
The Lumineers turn Sonic Boom to folk
It’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment where the mainstreaming of folk music reached maximum saturation and jumped the shark. Certainly that recent KIA commercial with Nathaniel Rateliff is very embarrassing. Some point to the X-Ambassadors having their lead single, Renegades, an otherwise fine song, permanently branded to the Jeep Renegade. Can’t hear it without […]
Volbeat motors manic metal mashup
Volbeat wears its influences on its sleeve – or would if frontman Michael Poulsen didn’t prefer to bare his arms to display his many tattoos. His vest. He wears his influences on his vest: Sewn patches of Motorhead, Johnny Cash, the Ramones, the death metal band called Death, and so on. Bursts of just about […]
FRINGE: 9 Best Shows
So we had a total of three (3) members on Team GigCity Fringe – and we still screwed up the schedule and reviewed the same play twice. Damn it! Still, let’s make the best of it and see how both Colin MacLean (ex-Sun, CBC) and Mel Priestley (ex-Vue) heaped praise upon 70 Scenes of Halloween […]
FRINGE: 4 swell musicals
The Fringe is oft a bouquet of music, a transport of melody or even a delirious grab bag of song and dance. Let’s start with the delirious. There was once an East German girly/boy named Hansel who longed to be a singer in a rock band. He also wanted to be a girl but the […]
FRINGE: 3 shows with nudity
Dropping your pants is a sure-fire way to pack a Fringe house. Performances flagged with the “nudity” warning in the program usually have pretty decent crowds, because let’s face it: we’re all a bunch of perverts. However, while the idea of seeing a live naked person on stage is titillating, it’s not something to be […]
FRINGE: 4 spooky shows
Occurring in the doldrums of August, the Fringe might not seem the likeliest place for spooky tales. But each year always presents at least a few shows that dabble in the darker side, that smack of the paranormal, or that aim to generally give the audience a few thrills and chills. They aren’t in particular […]
Rockers rock Edmonton Rock Festival
People like Kim Mitchell and Randy Bachman have played here so much that we take them for granted. These guys are world-class artists who’ve put a lot of rock standards on the scoreboard, but around here they’re just part of the landscape, ignored, sometimes even scorned by younger generations. If you miss them now, hey, […]
Peter Gabriel and Sting make magic
This was a match made in heaven – and the result was a religious experience. So it works out. Two British rock Gods, Sting and Peter Gabriel, have put their own great music above rock star ego to perform together in what will surely go down as the best collaboration of the decade. At their […]
Insane Clown Posse lives up to its name
Their reputation precedes them – but Insane Clown Posse is not so evil after all. The hundreds of Juggalos who turned up for the group’s first Edmonton show at Union Hall Saturday night aren’t about to run out and do any of the horrible things depicted in ICP songs, just as they wouldn’t go out […]
