Stiff Little Fingers fires up old punks in Edmonton
The day the Stiff Little Fingers 2016 Canadian tour was announced on social media was an incredibly happy day for thousands of Canadian punks, old and young. The notion of the Belfast band playing anywhere in Canada other than Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal never came up. It was just silently assumed it would never happen. […]
Turandot is one messed up love story
Puccini’s Turandot is a maddening, brilliant mess that goes against every shred of decency, logic and common sense – but that’s opera for you. It was a crazy old story seen at Edmonton Opera’s spectacular season opener Saturday night: A strong-willed princess whose best friend was murdered by a man takes revenge against an entire […]
OLP + IME = the new classic rock
Late 1990s nostalgia has struck with a vengeance with the return of Our Lady Peace and I Mother Earth. At this rate, we’ll be reminiscing about the 2000s, and sharing fond memories about the day before yesterday. It doesn’t feel that long ago, but it’s actually been 20 years since these two bands turned up […]
Black Mourning Light to darken weekend
The question is not IF Edmonton can support such a narrow niche event as a “black and doom” metal festival – of course it can – but WHY. Dustin Ekman, producer of the Black Mourning Light Metal Festival happening this weekend, speaks from personal experience, “What else do you have to do when it’s 40 […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Stumbellas sellout
It’s no surprise that one of Ontario’s hottest folk-rock bands is playing a sold out show at Winspear Centre this Thursday night – when just four years ago they were playing Wunderbar. The Strumbellas’ 2012 album titled My Father and the Hunter was one of the year’s very best, featuring their epic song The Sheriff, […]
Weird town to be less weird without weird artist
To mangle a line from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Planet Edmonton will be a very great deal less weird without Philip Alexander Jagger. The performance artist, experimental musician, filmmaker, actor, poet and distant cousin of Mick Jagger has spent 30 years Making Something Strange in Edmonton, but will soon be moving to an […]
Cartoon concert review: Kanye loves Kanye
Performing weeks after Drake conquered Rogers Place, Kanye West showed Edmonton the opposite side of Drake’s win-‘em-over-approach. This was the Kanye show and it was all about Kanye. There were no opening acts or tacky TV commercials greeting the audience arriving into the bowels of Rogers Place. Instead, dry ice drifted along the floor and […]
Kenny Rogers knows when to fold ‘em
He can hardly walk, he can’t stand up for very long, his voice is a raspy shadow of its former self – but Kenny Rogers is making the most of what he’s got left, one last time. What a trouper. There should be something poetic said here about saluting the lion in his final victory […]
Roger Waters brings Us + Them to Edmonton
Remember how awesome that Roger Waters show was? KABOOM! Fwoosh! Kazam! All we are … is just another brick in the wall … whereupon a frickin’ airplane flies across the arena and crashes into the Wall, blowing it to smoking bricks. Wow. That was all in the first song, by the way. The show (at […]
MUSIC PREVIEW: Kanye vs. Kenny
At least the Oilers won the home opener against the Godless Flames – so now can we stow all the crap about the new arena already? All is forgiven! Again Edmonton has two arena shows on the same night – and not very much crossover audience between Kanye West (at Rogers Place) and Kenny Rogers […]
