Last Toke in the Big Pink
With weed about to become legal in Canada, I’m comfortable with a full disclosure: I smoked a lot of dope inside MacEwan University’s Jasper Place building when I was a music student there in the early 1980s. After a farewell party on April 28, the campus will be abandoned, the arts programs moved downtown. A […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Downtown Mr. Browne
Jackson Browne has turned his early success into an epic career now spanning six decades and 14 studio albums. The most recent of those, 2014’s Standing In the Breach, still, after all these years, found its way to No. 15 on the US chart. Playing Monday night at the Winspear Centre, Browne originally came to […]
REVIEW: Cinderella a real Cinderella story
In 1957, I joined over an astonishing 100 million North Americans to watch a live, black-and-white telecast of a new Rogers and Hammerstein musical Cinderella. The show featured that rising new Broadway star, a pre-Oscar Julie Andrews. The design was spectacular and the music was lovely – although not really up to the best of […]
REVIEW: John Mayer no one trick pony
John Mayer has turned self-indulgence into an art form. This is the whole point of being a rock star, isn’t it? To “indulge yourself.” It’s one of the seven deadly virtues of rock ‘n’ roll. Self indulgence is not necessarily a bad thing. It only means that you will do only what you love to […]
PLAYBILL: We’ve CRADDOCK with you!
Chris Craddock is on a role … ooh, make that roll. You know what? It works both ways. The Edmonton actor-playwright recently made his directorial debut in what turned out to be Alan Thicke’s last starring role in a feature film, It’s Not My Fault and I Don’t Care Anyway (based on one of Craddock’s […]
Rock opera dares to suggest Jesus human
When Jesus Christ Superstar was released in 1970, it was condemned by many Christian groups because it dared to suggest that Christ was human and Judas was a tragic figure. At the time, lyricist Tim Rice observed, “It happens that we don’t see Christ as God, but simply the right man at the right time […]
BRIAN WILSON: Sand, sun and golden adolescence
He stopped touring with his brothers and cousins long before the Beach Boys were a nostalgia act at Klondike Days – but Brian Wilson is known as much for his elusive eccentricities as his musical genius. He is the stuff of legend. The median age for his show at the Jubilee Auditorium Wednesday night was […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: John Mayer’s split personality
We all know John Mayer has a gift for writing beautiful, heartfelt pop songs to make strong men weep. That’s why he’s famous. We know that he likes to say outrageous things to reporters from time to time. That also makes him famous. Romantic involvements with women like Jessica Simpson, Katy Perry and Taylor Swift […]
PLAYBILL: Superstar rises at Mayfield
Jesus Christ Superstar is the best musical Andrew Lloyd Webber has ever made. FACT. Oh, you don’t want to argue around this time of year, when in some households the annual screening of the 1973 feature film starring dreamy Ted Neeley is as close to religion as they’re going to get all year – and […]
