MUSIC PREVIEW: Dixie Chicks stick to their guns
Look on the bright side of a Donald Trump presidency – our music scene will get better because so many great American artists will move to Canada! Maybe we can welcome the Dixie Chicks, too – in Edmonton to play Rogers Place Thursday night. These Texas-bred country-bluegrass women Natalie Maines, Emily Robison and Martie Maguire […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Airbourne the new hell’s bellringer
With the aging AC/DC in flinders, it falls to the next generation to carry the torch of timeless balls-to-the-walls rock ‘n’ roll. The world needs this. Enter Sandman … whoops, wrong band. Enter Airbourne, the young and eager hard rock quartet that sounds an awful lot like AC/DC. Helps they’re from Australia. Playing at the […]
INTERVIEW: Peaches reaches and teaches
In the art of exploring gender with bold musical statements, Peaches is way ahead of her time – but “that’s probably for other people to answer,” she says. So what say you, other people? There is a consensus. Peaches makes Lady Gaga look like Selena Gomez – and was doing her thing long before Lady […]
REVIEW: Drake takes the cake
While Keith Urban was the artist who christened Edmonton’s shiny, new downtown arena last Friday night, it was Drake who gave Rogers Place its first landmark concert. On Tuesday night, the Canadian hip hop mogul brought his Summer Sixteen tour to E-town for a sold-out concert, the first of two at Rogers Place. It was […]
Tears of joy for Dolly Parton
“I couldn’t sing a lick without my rhinestones!” Dolly Parton told nearly 20,000 fans at the brand new Rogers Place in downtown Edmonton on Saturday night. Pure and Simple is what she has called her show and new album – and really it was, down to the stage, the instruments and the raw storytelling. The […]
REVIEW: 5 Finger LIFE Punch
Five Finger Death Punch turns out to be more kind and sensitive than their name suggests. Oh, sure, they showed their hard side at their concert in Northlands Coliseum Saturday night. Their badassed side. They even brought a bunch of children on stage to take part in a rousing rendition of Burn MF. The former […]
Book of Mormon rings doorbell of your heart
They’re back – ringing doorbells and promoting The Word according to Joseph Smith. A pair of mismatched Mormon missionaries donned the official uniform of white shirt and black tie on Broadway five years ago in Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Robert Lopez’s smash hit musical The Book of Mormon. Parker and Stone are famous for […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Country rockets launch Rogers Place
What we have here is a “perfect storm” of Big Gigs occurring on one weekend. Something’s gonna blow. Could Rogers Place have picked a better headliner for its opening concert on Friday night than Keith Urban? He’s a favourite in this market, and a hunka hunka burnin’ love to women the world over. Fun fact: […]
Culture Club comes to Coliseum
Of course we don’t want to hurt Boy George. The man’s made some mistakes here and there, but who hasn’t? Besides, he’s made some memorable music as the main driving force of Culture Club, a fixture of 1980s pop culture – and we’re glad he’s still going for it. Nostalgia among area fans will surely […]
David Crosby passes Canada test
A lot of American celebrities joke about moving to Canada if Donald Trump gets elected – but David Crosby sounds serious. The ‘60s survivor with the trademark silver skirted eggshell mentioned it a whole bunch of times during his beautiful but talky show at the Winspear Centre Monday night. He said he was checking out […]
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 […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: David Crosby lights up Winspear
It’s one of those weekends on the live music scene that features a wide range of sounds, from folk to Americana, from hip hop to a lot of punk. The biggest name is definitely David Crosby, who plays the Winspear Centre on Monday night. Yes, that David Crosby. Well, really, there’s only one. Only ever […]
