INTERVIEW: Weezer from 2 sides
Scott Shriner is the perfect man to help us understand Weezer – an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a slowly unraveling sweater. While he’s not an original member, he’s the band’s longest serving bassist, since 2001. Shriner was a fan first: a bar band musician from Toledo, Ohio who came to Hollywood in […]
REVIEW: The Lumineers light up Edmonton
The Lumineers sure have matured since they came up with the big Ho Hey that launched their folk-popping star just five years ago. They’d have to – they’ve been working non-stop ever since. The proof was in their stomperific, strumtacular show at Rogers Place on Friday night. It was puzzling to see some 14,000 hip […]
April Fool’s Day cancelled
Because we have reached a tipping point in society where there is more fake news than real news – and not only is the fake news more popular but it often reveals more truth than real news, fiction being less strange than truth – April Fool’s Day has been cancelled by Order of the Government. […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: The Lumineers keep it lit
Now that Mumford and Sons have ditched folk, it is the sacred duty of The Lumineers to carry on the trend of funny stringed instruments, odd drums and fashionable hats in popular music. We just can’t get enough. At Rogers Place Friday night for their first proper headlining show in Edmonton, The Lumineers came to […]
PLAYBILL: A little Peter Pan in all of us
It’s worth asking why there have been so many versions and adaptations of Peter Pan. Is it because that all of us, deep down inside, in our heart of hearts, have a secret desire to fly around while wearing green tights? Or is there something deeper? Maybe it’s because Peter Pan is a magical flying […]
Chris Stapleton shows his love in Edmonton
In true country music fashion, many of Chris Stapleton’s songs are about drinking – which resonated with the crowd at Northlands Coliseum on Saturday night because everywhere you looked there was beer in hand. Except for the underage fans, of course. Being 17 years old and just 3 months away from the legal drinking age […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Tea Party still getting oolong
While the Tea Party’s heyday was definitely in the 1990s, with such hits on alternative radio as The River, Temptation, Psychopomp, Heaven Coming Down, and The Messenger, the band broke up in 2005 and went their separate ways – but then finally reunited in 2011, much to the delight of their fans. That reunion met […]
HISTORY: From Hawaii to hockey to Hollywood
Get ready to feel super old, People of a Certain Age: The “Super Oldies” record label has reissued the self-titled 1980 album by the Edmonton band Footloose. Meanwhile, the Wayne Gretzky statue has been uprooted from its original home at Northlands Coliseum after 28 years, and moved to the new Rogers Place arena. It’s no […]
PLAYBILL: Go Into the Woods, we dare you
There’s a weird sort of fractured hindsight at work in the musical Into the Woods. We’ve all seen it – in our bedtime stories. Written by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, this award-winning musical is a willy nilly hodge podge of almost every Grimm fairy tale that has since made into an sanitized-animated feature by […]
