Burton Cummings at Rock Fest, reunions at Hot Plains
Festival announcements are piling up, as area citizens try to stuff as much fun and frivolity into the short Canadian summer as humanly possible. We must. First up, because it’s fresh, is the reveal of the line-up for the annual Edmonton Rock Music Festival. Burton Cummings is the biggest name of an all-Canadian classic rock […]
Edmonton big winner at Edmonton Music Awards
It’s hard to know who the biggest winner was at the 2014 Edmonton Music Awards – the artists that collected the prizes or our “awesome” city itself. There was a lot of love in the room at the Royal Alberta Museum Theatre Sunday night – and most of it for Edmonton – for the fourth […]
INTERVIEW: Il Divo no boy band!
Il Divo does not know the meaning of the words “novelty act” – literally. There seems to be no comparable idiom in Western European languages for the concept of entertainment whose style outshines its apparent substance and seems to survive on irony. A three-quarters European group of four guys in Armani suits crooning “Memory” or […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Collective Soul now classic rock
Has enough time passed that we can nostalgic for Collective Soul? With four albums in the decade, each of them achieving platinum status both north and south of the border, and a consistent roster that lasted into the 2000’s, this band was the ubiquitous infrastructure that the 1990’s music scene was built around. Led by […]
Johnny Rotten comes to Edmonton in Jesus Christ Superstar
So you are the Christ, you’re the great Jesus Christ. Prove to me that you’re divine, change my water into wine … and God save the queen’s fascist regime! Is that how it goes? How’s this for a masterpiece of casting: Johnny Rotten, aka John Lydon, will be playing the role of King Herod in […]
Madama Butterfly goes Back to the Future
A team from Edmonton Opera saw a time-travelling version of Madama Butterfly in England and liked it so much they decided to stage it in Edmonton for the company’s 50th anniversary. It opens Saturday, April 5 at the Jubilee Auditorium (also running April 8 and 10). That’s right, there’s a time machine. Time machines weren’t […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Storm the Bastille!
It’s no surprise that Saturday’s show with Bastille at the Union Hall sold out moments after its announcement. The band was named as the “British Breakthrough Act” at the 2014 Brit Awards and won’t be playing nightclubs much longer. Originally started as a solo project by London singer-songwriter Dan Smith, the band is best-known for […]
Classified keeps it real Canadian, really high
Like a lot of white rappers of a certain age, Classified, aka Luke Boyd, listened to Snoop and Dr. Dre when he was a kid. That stuff wasn’t easy to find in Enfield, Nova Scotia, where he came of age in the mid-1990s. Cassette tapes were treasured possessions. He and three other dudes comprised the […]
Local band raises money for Friedreich’s Ataxia
Although Edmonton musician Joel Kleine has a disease that keeps him in wheelchair, he will keep performing and making music as long as he can. “Music is my therapy,” he says, adding that whether he’s on stage, practicing with his band Bombproof the Horses, writing songs or making demos, music helps him forget his disability. […]
You can’t take the metal out of the Maimann
Kevin Maimann is a folkie with a metalhead inside screaming to get out – or is it the other way around? There is little doubt that the 27-year-old Edmonton Sun music columnist is a metal fan. As a teenager he braided his hair like the dude from Korn. He says he doesn’t consider himself a […]
Fleetwood Mac returns – with Christine McVie!
Fleetwood Mac sure seems to like Edmonton. The band is coming back to town for its aptly-named “On With the Show” tour – featuring Christine McVie for the first time in 16 years. They were just here last May, one short. Now they are complete. And there was great rejoicing. This is of course the […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: There goes The Neighborhood
How fitting that we’re still mired in “Sweater Weather” – since the authors of that hit song, The Neighborhood, play Edmonton’s Union Hall on Saturday night. Formed in 2011, the California band features the vocal talents of Jesse Rutherford, the bright guitar tones of guitarists Jeremy Freedman and Zach Abels, with drummer Brandon Fried. The […]
