REVIEW: City and Colour pretty mellow and moody for an arena concert
Rogers Place was surprisingly packed and loud for City and Colour on Tuesday night – but the arena atmosphere didn’t really lend itself to the cozy intimacy of the performance. Singer Dallas Green has a beautiful voice, truly melodic. His songs are by turns the haunted notions of a wounded spirit and the hopeful opining […]
TRUE STORY: This is Not the First Time Don Cherry Has Been Fired!
Here’s a hint to anyone aspiring to land a career somewhere in the public forum. Never preface any point with “you people.” It surfaced last Saturday on a Sportsnet Coach’s Corner segment where Don Cherry took aim at immigrants who apparently refused to wear poppies to commemorate Canada’s war dead. After a fierce social media […]
Class of ’63 chews up groovy bubblegum at the Mayfield Dinner Theatre
The first sprig of Christmas greenery to appear this year is courtesy of the Mayfield Dinner Theatre. For many years now, it has been their seasonal tradition to unleash another of their large-scale, lavishly-produced musical extravaganzas that have proven to be great crowd pleasers – and to generate lots of Christmas cheer at the box […]
REVIEW: The Beast is BACK!
The current production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast comes from our spunky local musical theatre production company, Foote in the Door. The troupe began when a group of graduates of the Citadel’s Foote Theatre School, having tasted the magical waters of musical theatre, decided to found a platform for their continuing obsession. Earlier productions […]
Formula for a brilliant Citadel hit: 6 wives of Henry VIII, + Spice Girls + #MeToo
The spirited new musical SIX has catapulted onto the mainstage of the Citadel, pausing here on its way to an official opening next year on Broadway (where the theatre is already booked). SIX began its life in the midst of a poetry class at Cambridge in 2017. Toby Marlow had just been awarded a spot […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: WE LOVE 1990s CANADIAN ROCK!
Big Wreck is another one of those bands that’s become exceptionally well-known across the great nation of Canada – and pretty much forgotten South of the border. Or rather, were never really known, so couldn’t even be forgotten. It’s America’s loss. It’s a little more unusual in this case, because the band was actually formed […]
REVIEW: Workshop West drama exposes dark underbelly of Edmonton
Back in 1978, Workshop West was just a gleam in Gerry Potter’s eye. He founded the company to give Alberta playwrights a shot at seeing their works actually produced on a stage. Since then, many plays have graced its various stages. In 2014, playwright Vern Thiessen returned from New York, changed the name of the […]
INTERVIEW: Checking in with Sum 41 and their depressing new album
There are two schools of thought about rock artists who express negative feelings in their songs. On one hand, maybe it’s healthy to get that stuff out there. “Name it to tame it,” the therapists say. But then it all might get to you. The lyrics of Chris Cornell, Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, and Kurt […]
INTERVIEW: Wide Mouth Mason slides home
Fans of Wide Mouth Mason may be in for a big surprise when the band plays Friday night at Blues on Whyte. It’s not going to be a classic rock nostalgia concert, though it’s been nearly 25 years since they started. This is an entirely new direction: Shaun Verreault – the prairie wunderkind who wowed […]
REVIEW: The Odd Couple meets Breaking Bad in Shadow Theatre production
The Roommate at first glance plays like a re-imagining of The Odd Couple – but it’s much more than that. Jen Silverman’s new comedy-drama, which comes to Edmonton for a Shadow Theatre show after a successful run at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, strikes off in its own subversive directions. It plays at the Varscona Theatre until […]
OLD MAN MIKULA’S CONTROVERSIAL OPINIONS: Mr. Alberta Want Separate!
Carbon Tax frigfrog boobledunk ug termpt wempel spleg Liberal minority skump peener teet compo NDP bung Greens shnug posso beepboop Alberta bergen pick furndy equalization payments. Plock do diddly whop possler Calgary gribble pimpstimp gibbler energy corridor. Pecken waffel shneeze plensin Alberta prug robe do-dup feffle pep Ontario bling blong peckinposs Conservative Doug Ford flemp […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Walk Off the Earth on a Fast Run to the Top
Generally referred to as an “indie band,” Burlington, Ontario’s Walk Off the Earth finds influences and inspirations from all manners of music, with virtually no limits on what they might pull out of the musicsphere to craft their material – from more traditional guitars, bass, and drums, to banjos, glockenspiels, ukuleles, and even a theremin. […]
