REFRAIN MUSIC

First off I have to mention the new “Center” facility at the newly constructed, $90 Million, Casino NB (called The Center because it’s the middle of the building in between the Casino and the Hotel). It’s a fantastic facility that has already seen the likes of Roger Hodgson, Regis Philbin, and already has the likes of The Beach Boys, Randy Travis, and Paul Anka lined up. The Center has a fantastic and spacious lobby with room for a majority of the patrons and even has a ‘bar’ for concert goers to entertain themselves prior to a show, which is a nice touch. Easy access to the seating venue through two large doors, complete with ushers with electronic scanners get’s everyone to their seats in a quick and easy manner. The seating is laid out in a very functional pattern where you can see the main stage, aided by two large video screens to either side of the stage high up on the walls. Acoustically this venue rocks, the sound was superb, not overpowering and every word from the stage clear…and speaking of the stage…on to the show!

Travis Tritt hit the stage with his band to start off the night of over two hours and twenty minutes of music, stories, reflecting, thanks, bluesy, rockin’, country fun. Rattling off renditions of classic songs like “Foolish Pride”, “Be Somebody”, and Eagles cover “Take It Easy”.

Having been around since the late 80’s Travis had some stories to tell, and he did just that giving the band a break and sitting alone center stage with an acoustic guitar. Telling stories about years on the road, travels, longing for home, mixing the stories with songs like “Fields of Home” with a great lead in about a relationship he had with his father.

When the band returned they launched into the barn burners like “Here’s A Quarter”, and “Country Club” and mixed in a little tenderness with “When There’s Something Wrong With My Baby”. The crowd were eating it up, with several standing ovations and Tritt at times seemed taken back with the response.

After almost two hours of playing we were all thinking we might get a one or maybe two song encore, were we ever pleasantly surprised…sporting a SRV styled hat and blasting out almost thirty minutes of bluesy, rock styled tunes that had the place hopping with guitar solos, and keyboard solos and cheering crowds.
Needless to say, if you ever get to see his show live, it’s well worth the price of admission if you like countrified, bluesy, rockin’ music…bravo TT!

On a side note I’m really, REALLY glad the sign at the front door of the center (still photography prohibited) was not enforced. Myself and the hundreds of digital camera toting fans in the crowd would have been really disappointed with the venue.

To “The Center” themselves…those bleacher chairs that are all connected together are really annoying, the woman sitting beside me was ‘bopping’ to everything! So thus I was bopping too…even when I was trying to take a picture.

Overall…great show, great venue!

This year’s trip to the Cavendish Beach Music Festival was a little different, this year it wasn’t with the local country station and thus no backstage access for your’s truly, on my own dime, but it was still well worth the trip. Travelling with my other half and some of our friends we bed down in Brackley Beach (thank-you Northwinds) about a 20 minute drive from the chaos of the concert site for Thursday’s show (featuring, Melanie Morgan, Shane Yellowbird, Gloriana, and Keith Urban).
The concert this year was 5 days, which in my opinion is way, way too long, it started on Wednesday with a group of local bands warming up the stage for bigger acts starting the next day. It ended on Sunday, which I think is an error on the part of the organizers, Friday’s weaker line-up could have been augmented by groups from Sunday’s line-up and given concert go-ers a travel day on Sunday. I personally think this would be a much stronger festival if it went to three days (Thurs.-Sat.) with the same amount of acts.

After arriving on the island and having a little BBQ lunch we began parusing the well organized concert web-site, and we decided that our best bet was to journey to one of the large concert parking lot’s (yay “P4”!) and take one of the awesome “free” shuttles to the concert site ($10 to park, free shuttle to the site entrance and back again, perfect). Arriving at the parking lot you are guided smoothly into a spot by attendents who are willing to answer questions and flash a friendly smile and then are directed to one of several shuttles awaiting to take a load to the entrance of the concert site. A smart addition near where you board the shuttles is the large signs that advise you what you ‘can’ and ‘cannot’ bring into the concert site, this gives you the opportunity to check your bag (most carry some form of backpack in) and return unwelcome items to your car while you are still in close proximity to your vehicle, smart. So off we go hopping onto what appears to be an old transit bus, abuzz with other concert goers (including 6 ladies in identical Keith Urban shirts who stated this was their third time seeing him) anticipating the first big day of the festival. After a short drive towards Cavendish we arrive at the drop off which is directly across from Avonlea (concert is behind the park) and are instructed that this is where we catch the bus to return to P4.

Once we enter the grounds of Avonlea (Village of Green Gables) there is a farely long walk to the entrance to the site which is at the very ‘back’ of the concert site, you can take advantage of ‘hay rides’ (wagons pulled by farm tractors) for a $2/pers charge to cut the distance in half. We didn’t take advantage of the rides but it’s a nice addition, I’d suggest to the organizers that the move it closer to the road so that people could ride all the way in from the street if possible. We finally made the trek up the slowly sloping hill to the entrance and went through the usuall ‘bag/contraband’ check at the gate, got our ticket scanned and moved into the gated concert site.

Immediately inside the concert site the ladies had to have their picture taken with the life-size ‘Keith Urban’ cut-out (amusingly they wrinkled their nose at getting their picture taken with the Taylor Swift one). Then it was off to the ‘merch tent’ for some shirts, we all chose some a nice Urban shirts that were a reasonable $35, unlike the $50 tank-top that Bon Jovi was selling last summer, geez for fifty bucks at least give me sleeves. Myself being the only one of our group that has been to the venue before, I now become a bit of a tour guide pointing out where the vendors are located, the ‘potties’, the beer area, the “kitchen” (the alternate stage area for more local groups that play when nothing is on the main stage) etc. We then make our way down through the well laid out site and plant our butts on the ‘grass’ in front of the stage about a hundred feet back, to listen to Melanie Morgan start the day off and bake in the mid-30’s temps.

Melanie Morgan is an up and coming young lady from Moncton whose gotten some great writing under her belt and whom I last saw open for Aaron Pritchett in Moncton. She’s a confident songstress that belts out a tune with a powerful voice who is backed up by experienced musicians, she interacts with her crowd, and generally entertains. After Ms. Morgan’s performance came Alberta born Shane Yellowbird’s turn on the main stage, this Cree-Canadian has a tendency to make a lot of the ladies swoon a bit as he steps on to the stage, he ran through some of his several hit songs like “Pick-up Truck” and “Beautiful Concept” all while interjecting stories about his travels to the concert, his crazy flight delays (he was in three Maritime provinces just to get to PEI) and just generally a personable guy.

After Shane Yellowbird’s performance we decided it was time to get some grub at one of the many vendor’s and this is where I had my first real gripe with the Cavendish concert experience. My first problem, was the fact that you have to stand in one line and buy plastic coins that have dollar values ($2, $4, $6, $10) and then go get in another line to purchase food, this is just silly. Second, it’s in the mid to high 30’s with humidity and you are charging people $4 for a 500ml bottle of water!!?? That’s not only insane it’s dangerous! So it cost me $10 for a bottle of water and a hot dog bun filled with pulled turkey…$10!…can you say highway robbery (especially the water)! I do have to give kudos to the “Turkey Hut” folks…that sandwich was freakin’ yummy, but, if it wasn’t $6 each I would have had two (maybe more)!

Our belly somewhat full, and the sun starting to dip in the sky, next up was ‘Emblem’ recording artist Gloriana! This increasingly popular foursome only formed as recently as 2008 and are rapidly winning over a fan base and a plethora of awards like the ACMA Top New Vocal Group of 2009. Personally I didn’t know a lot about Gloriana, only knowing their very successful hit song “Wild At Heart” which is a very ‘catchy’ tune. I must say, the show they put on in front of me made me a fan of Gloriana, especially when they pulled out three classic rock tunes by the Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, and especially their cover of Joe Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way” which was ‘very’ well done. Their performance had me tapping my toes, singing along, doing some air guitar, (ogling the very attractive, and talented, vocalist/mandolin player Cheyenne Kimball) and really enjoying their live performance. I’m a big fan of groups that perform well live, that entertain you, that interact with the crowd, and don’t just ‘go through the motions’ (see Tim McGraw last year, whom I’d pass on to see Gloriana any day). Bravo to Gloriana and I look forward to seeing them again very soon.

Next up was the main act, and the primary reason I came to Cavendish this year, Keith Urban. I’d been a fan of Urban since his guitar playing caught my attention in his band “The Ranch” and I looked forward to watching him play live. The show started with a large Canadian flag being put up on the big screen and the national anthem being played which sparked a heartwarming cheer from the crowd, then the flag faded and their was a video of Keith Urban standing next to a “Welcome to Charlottetown” sign that is right across the street from the Charlottetown airport…he waves to the crowd on the screen and as he walks off the screen…he walks onto the stage…great start. This began Mr. Urban’s 1.5 hour long show that had everything from fast up tempo songs like “Sweet Thing” and “Kiss A Girl” to the more mellow (and personal favorite) “Stupid Boy”. One left out song that surprised myself and especially my travelling companions was the omission of his first US number one single “But For The Grace of God” which they were looking forward to. That said, Keith played a tonne of his great songs like “Days Go By” and “You Look Good In My Shirt” and looked like he was genuinely enjoying himself on the stage. Speaking of on stage, at one point during one song (which one eludes my memory as I was scrambling to get a picture) he came off the stage while playing his guitar and entered the crowd and moved to a riser that was out in the crowd and sang a verse of the song from out there, a nice touch for sure. Urban completed the concert to a raucous crowd response and the crowd urged him to come out for an encore. As he walked back onstage he asked a young girl about her poster and that he’d been trying to read it all night…then proceeded to ask her to come onstage. This girl about 8 years old came up in her sparkly cowboy hat, poster in hand and he asked her where she was from, “Calgary, Alberta” she responded. He then read the poster and it said, “4796kms to see family and Keith Urban” at which time he signed her poster, gave her a hug and kicked into his encore, nice touch. The concert, complete with 15 minute encore, was a well rounded, entertaining and fun experience that I would recommend any Urban fan to see. He sounds almost better live than he does recorded, interacts, with the crowd and leaves you feeling fulfilled. Bravo Mr. Urban…we’ll see you again.

We exited the sight through the same exit/entrance (man I miss the VIP parking from last year) as when we came in, and I was the only one of us eyeing the ‘hay rides’ out so we walked to the waiting shuttles. As we arrived a bus was loading for P4, and I was shocked how many people could cram into a transit bus, but we made it up all the hills and back to P4, into our vehicle, and back on the road to Brackley Beach with the greatest of ease (yay P4!)

We had decided only to go to the Keith Urban day of the show because that is the one we really wanted to see, there was no draw for us on other day’s and had no desire to be embedded in the screaming teenie-weenie that would be a Taylor Swift concert. Plus Lady Antebellum was on a Sunday (last day of vacation) which I would have enjoyed but would have ended too late for us to drive back to the mainland.

Things I’d change at the venue:

– hay ride drop off/pick up closer to the road
– food vendor prices lowered ($4 water is ridiculous)
– no more plastic coins to buy food
– more screens (near concession stands, “kitchen” area) of what’s occurring on the main stage
– shorten the festival to 3 days (Thurs. to Sat.)
– lower current one day price by about 20% (so a pair of tickets is no more than $150 taxes in)

http://www.keithurban.net/

http://www.gloriana.com/

http://www.shaneyellowbird.com/

http://www.melaniemorgan.me

Most rumors start as a whisper, this whisper started about 4 years ago, it grew and grew into a roar! The minute that the city announced that it had scored the biggest concert in the Maritimes, ever, with the Rolling Stones…people thought…’hmmm, if they can pull that off’. So it began, the whisper grew louder and what was that whisper? Fans…many fans, expressing their desire that one of the most popular rock and roll bands of all time be brought to ‘the hill’. What started as a whisper began to ring like ‘hells bells’, a loud and resounding chorus…bring AC/DC!
AC/DC…that Australian band formed in 1973 by Scottish born brothers Angus and Malcolm Young. From their first successful album with then lead singer Bon Scott (R.I.P.) of ‘Highway To Hell’ to their second album that made them international stars Back In Black. They went on to release their third album, For Those About To Rock We Salute You, which rose to number one status in the US, a first for the band. As of 2008, AC/DC have sold more than 200 million albums worldwide, including 71 million albums in the United States. Back in Black has sold an estimated 45 million units worldwide, making it the highest-selling album by any band and the 2nd highest-selling album in history, behind “Thriller” by Michael Jackson.
Fast forward to 2009 and one of the “worst kept secrets” in the history of concerts was about to come to fruition, the city signed the contract and one of the most popular tours in the world was coming to Moncton…August 6th / 2009…AC / DC was going to rock the hill! For Those About To Rock, We Salute You…indeed!
Now some at first wondered what the city was thinking, why you ask, because they booked this concert on a “Thursday”. Many didn’t understand that AC/DC were currently in the middle of a huge world tour, and if Moncton wanted to be ‘fit in’, that was the date that was available…honestly it didn’t matter.
Normally I would have been mixed in with the crowd for a show of this magnitude but that is one interesting thing about this venue. At the top of the hill are people’s every day homes, they live there year round and get one of the best seats in the house for every show. Now a friend of mine found out he could gain us access, for a fee of course, to one of the parties in the back yard of one of these homes. Perfect!
Concert day arrived and of course the city was a buzz with concert activity from ‘out of town’ folk rolling into town, to locals adjusting to the buzz and remember, it being Thursday with the concert gates opening at 4pm, there was ‘rush hour’ to contend with. “The Answer” the first opening act for today’s big rock show were taking the stage, people were rolling onto the hill, the sun was shining and it was gonna be a great evening. The Answer are a rock band from Northern Ireland that has recently begun to get some acclaim with their sound warranting opening gigs for the likes of Whitesnake, The Rolling Stones and of course, AC/DC…I definitely heard some Zeppelin influence in their style. Next up were, believe it or not, were those heavily influencing sounds of the band Anvil! Anvil has been around since the late seventies to early eighties and have been credited for influencing such bands as Metallica. Anvil has released thirteen studio albums, have been around for 31 years, have had a documentary made about them, and can still bang out a lot of noise on stage! They put on a pretty good show, swear like troopers, and rock hard!
As the sun set, the light dimmed, the crowd was still rolling in and from our vantage point we started to notice an odd ‘flickering’ amongst the crowd of spectators awaiting the arrival of the main act as they still were streaming into the site. We then realized, that the thousands of red colored ‘devil horns’ that we saw people wearing on their heads as they entered the site were now blinking on and off in the dim light of sunset. Sometimes Angus Young, the guitarist for AC/DC like to perform his “devils horns” act, usually just before playing “Highway To Hell”…adorning the top of the stage on either side were two gigantic red hat’s with devil’s horns and the letter “A” emblazoned on the front (later these would light up bright red while the band played). So now picture this, at least a third of seventy thousand plus people, scattered throughout the crowd, blinking through the whole show; it was like tens of thousands of red colored lightning bugs attending the biggest concert of the summer.
As darkness settled over the city and the lights of the city in behind the stage came to life, so too did the giant screen on the back of the stage, and so too did the crowd. As a video of a traing took us on a cartoon ride through AC/DC land, the crowd electrified, and began to roar with the anticipation of the band taking the stage. With a blast of electric guitar and blinding stage lights AC/DC took the stage and blew through two hours of fantastic rock & roll! They hit us with old standards like Highway to Hell, Back in Black, and For Those About To Rock (We Salute You), they teased us with new songs like Rock & Rock Train, Big Jack, and Black Ice, and they blew us away with a 15-20 minute Angus Young guitar solo, and songs like Thunderstruck and You Shook Me All Night Long! The band finished the night with a massive blast of fireworks shooting out above the stage, thrilling the crowd into even louder excited cheers!
The moon rose over the stage, fireworks flew into the air, the band rocked, the crowd roared (and blinked) through the night and seventy thousand plus rolled out of the Magnetic Hill Music Festival, once again, rocked, and rolled, and shook all night long!

Now the next whispers begin…some are whispering “U2”, some Springsteen, but we will have to wait until early 2010 to see just who it’s gonna be! For Those About To Rock…We Salute You!

So it all started with a phone call and a question: “Do you want to meet Reba”?

That’s how this whirlwind of a weekend began with one of the jocks at the radio station that I ‘part-time’ at calling me and asking that very question.
With all the successful concerts taking place in recent years in Moncton, and Halifax; PEI wanted to get in on the game. They did so moderately with the likes of Pussycat Dolls, Black Eyed Peas, and Aerosmith but the venue they chose was atrocious. This time however they changed things up a bit, it was to be held at Cavendish Beach, behind “Avonlea”, near Ann of Green Gables…a three day country music extravaganza. Now, I had no intention of going to this concert as I was saving my pennies for the much anticipated AC/DC concert in Moncton later in the summer.

‘Want to meet Reba’? Enticing words, the chance to meet someone of musical stature and respect such as Reba…these opportunities don’t materialize every day. After my limited amount of brain matter processed the question it came up with a response…’of course I do’. So now my friend at the station is visually impaired and thus I was to be his guide, never having done something like that before, needless to say that was a little terrifying. But arrangements were made and on Friday evening we would be hopping in a station vehicle, and heading for potato-land PEI.

Friday arrived and …let’s call him “S” and I were heading for the island in a vehicle emblazoned with station and sponsor logos, now we left late in the day knowing we were going to miss Friday’s line-up, as “S” had to finish his shift at the station before we could leave. Surprisingly without much interference between Moncton and Cape Tormentine we arrived at the ‘bridge’, I wish I could have shared that view with “S” but I did my best to describe it to him. A few moments later we are on the island of red mud and booking it for Cavendish! I won’t bore you with details of parking but somehow we shmoozed our way into the ‘vip’ parking directly behind the stage, and I mean directly, about 50′ behind the stage to be exact. Score! “S” had been in contact with Willie Mack, one of the performers and the host of the event this weekend several times and we were off to try and find him…we’d already missed him perform along with Doc Walker, Aaron Lines, and a couple of others in the ‘Kitchen’. What is the Kitchen you ask? They had an alternate stage set up at the top of the hill where local acts would be playing in between the main acts that were performing on the main stage…great idea. We determined that we had arrived just before country stars Big & Rich were about to take the stage. We were frantically trying to reach Willie Mack as he was the one getting us our backstage passes, did I forget to mention, heh, we were supposed to be backstage all weekend. But here comes my first gripe with the concert site, the cellular service was absolutely ‘non-existent’ if you were on Bell/Aliant. Bell/Aliant really dropped the ball on this weekend…Rogers had put a portable repeater tower ON the concert site. I don’t know if that repeater also had a ‘cancelling effect’ on Bell/Aliant’s service, but it really hindered us this weekend…more on that later…come on Bell/Aliant, you are supposed to be the ‘local’ guys here, and the guys from Ontario trump you!?? Bad for business!

We were also supposed to meet up with another co-worker from the station who was from the island, he was letting us stay at his Mom’s house 30 minutes away, score, free accomidations! But wait, no cell service, luckily we managed to get a couple of text messages out to him and we met him after the show. Now off to find a good place to view and hear Big & Rich! Well, “S” and I managed to get about a hundred feet from the stage, dead center for Big & Rich and the show was about to start, for those that were there I have no idea what the purpose of the ‘midget and the giant’ thing was all about, that was weird. The show it self was really good, but the animosity between Big Kenny and John Rich is very evident, they did not say one word to each other for the hour and fifteen minutes they were on the stage together. One would talk to the crowd, or the other would, but never directly to each other. We also found out that John Rich likes his Canadian Whisky in the form of Crown Royal…smart man..he was toasting the crowd with a rather large sized bottle of Crown. JR also stated that if anyone wanted to party with him afterwords he’d be at (one of my fav’s in PEI) Peakes Quay in Charlottetown until the wee hours…and from reports the next day…he did indeed actually go to the bar! “S” and I were hungry at one point and we went to get a slice of pizza, only to find out we had to go buy “token’s” (plastic coins with the concert logo on them) from another booth, then come back to the pizza line…my words…dumb, dumb, dumb! Then, after that silliness, to be served cold, cardboard with some sauce on it…blech! It only cost me like $6 (yes I’m rolling my eyes). The show ended about 10:30pm and we were off to fight our way out through traffic and back to Summerside for some food and and sleep.

Saturday…up and off to the concert site, with a stop at a burger joint, oh and for coffee of course as I need at least one to start the day. The concert site was a bustle of activity, even more than the night before as I surmise that more people have arrived on the island on Saturday. The nice security card from the night before waved and passed some pleasantries as we passed into our backstage secure parking area.
Once again Bell/Aliant really let us down, we couldn’t get a signal again and we wanted to upload some live remote feeds back to the station…no such luck. We tried many times to reach Willie Mack to no avail in the backstage area, but finally managed to get a hold of the tour manager or another performer, Tara Oram who brought us backstage to sit and chat with Tara for a few minutes before her show. Now, I have to say, what you see is what you get with Tara, what you see on stage is what you get off, she’s just a nice, pretty, hometown girl from Newfoundland that’s made good with her music. It was great of her even when our Netbook that we were recording interviews on malfunctioned, that she was willing to do the whole interview all over again. Not only did she have a great interview with us she put on a fun and entertaining segment to the show which I greatly enjoyed mixed with her music and her goofy sense of humor. On our way out from the Tara interview we ran into “The Wilkinson’s” who were backstage getting ready to do their bit for the crowd, having known “S” from the past we stopped to chit chat with them for a bit. After Tara’s performance we spent some time in ‘the Kitchen’ watching/interviewing local artists like John Oliver and The Keats. The Keats are an act to watch out for, as a sister act based out of Halifax that performs around the Maritimes regularly, they are growing a large fan base. I describe their sound as a cross between The Dixie Chicks and Sugarland with that slight bluegrass twist of Allison Krauss. While we were in the Kitchen we also ran into Steve Waylon and Joan Kennedy two local Moncton artists that were there as well. As we left the Kitchen in search of some grub the Grass Mountain Hobos were taking the stage on the main stage, but they turned out to be more background music for us as we stuffed some more overpriced grub in our faces. Saturday also featured the like of Steve Azar, The Wilkinson’s, and I must say, The Wilkinson’s are fantastic performers. They breezed through their songs like the seasoned veterans they are exciting the crowd with a sincere and heartfelt performance. The headliner of the day was Tim McGraw and “S” and I positioned ourselves in pretty much the same spot that we did for Big & Rich the night before only about twenty-five feet closer. It was a warm clear night and the crowd was substantially larger than the night before. Now I didn’t know quite what to expect out of the tall man in the black hat after hearing mixed reviews from his performance in Moncton a few years back when he was touring with his wife Faith Hill. Let’s just say I wasn’t as impressed as some of the obvious fans that were there, he spent very little time interacting with his crowd (which he literally took the time to tell the crowd he thought was just a bunch of “BS” anyway, they just play music), they played for a total of one hour, 15 minutes (encore) exactly and were gone off the stage…this was your headliner? (zzzzz) I think most of his fans were happy just to see him perform, as an avid concertgoer I would have been very upset to pay money to see that.

Another day gone…off to Summerside yet again in search of food and sleep.

Sunday! We also have good news…we finally reached Willie Mack, or rather, he reached us by calling us before he went to the concert site and we made arrangements to meet him and get our passes!

Into the car we jumped and tore for the concert site so we didn’t miss meeting up with Willie, who if you’re Canadian, and haven’t listened to his song “Howdy Eh”, you’re missing out. We finally met up with Willie and got our backstage passes and head into the realm of mystery behind the stage to hang out in the performer trailer with Willie. A recurring theme for me all weekend had been how nice and ‘genuine’ all these ‘country folk’ had been and Willie was no exception. We chatted with Willie in between his hosting duties, and his performances as he had to play extra today for ‘no show’ Crystal Shawanda…who no shows a chance to perform at a concert with 20,000 + people and get to hang out with some of the biggest names in country all weekend? Bizarre. While we hung out in the trailer we chatted with Bruce Guthro, Gordie Sampson (whom I’d met years ago while he was part of a band called “Real World” out of Cape Breton) and Deric Ruttan. We got to interview Deric who is one of the nicest guy’s you’ll ever meet, yet another performer that when our computer malfunctioned (or was it the operator) he was willing to do the interview all over again. You learn with sitting with these artists that they are real people, with families and trials and tribulations, just like the rest of us. As we watched Deric perform his set, I thought, I liked his music before but today I became a fan. I also had the opportunity to meet Deric’s wife who is an amazing lady who is also an accomplished song writer. I’m looking forward to when Deric comes back to the Maritimes on tour in February. While Deric was performing I had to go to the washroom and as I was walking back I saw a tall guy in a ball cap standing just outside a trailer and thought ‘hey…isn’t that…?’ Yup, Paul Brandt. So off I went to grab “S” and we went off to have a chat and get a picture with Paul Brandt.

As Paul Brandt took the stage we were hanging out in the catering tent and noticed a new red Ford Flex zip into the backstage area, and I noticed the tension level in the area amped up a bazillion degrees. I caught a glimpse of red hair in the back seat, and realized what was going on, Reba had arrived. The catering tent was rapidly cleared by security muscle and label powers as this is where Reba would do her meet and greet with the few fans that had won various contest’s and such to meet her, oh, and yes I was one of them. As we all gathered in a tight line we were given instructions by one of Reba’s ‘people’ on how this would all go down, she’d come in we’d get to say a brief hello, etc, if we had a camera we could take a picture and off we would go. That’s exactly how it went, it was over as fast as it had began, I’d met Reba, got a picture to prove it and was off to watch her show. Reba is a pro, and she oozed that on the stage, you could just tell that this was someone who had been doing this, and loving it, for a long time. She played all the hits, told stories, interacted with the crowd and the fans ate it up…as I watched from backstage with Deric Ruttan, his wife, Willie, and “S” it was a good cap to a great weekend of music, new friends, cardboard pizza, and not enough sleep. With a costume change into a brilliant red dress Reba sang one final tune and was gone as quickly as she’d arrived and that was the end of the 1st Cavendish Beach Music Festival…I’m sure there will be more.

Here we are in our first ‘refrain’…our first, I hope of many meetings together. Sit back, read, absorb, and hopefully enjoy…if you don’t enjoy, well, have a nice day anyway.

I start this blog with a concert I recently attended, the Magnetic Hill Music Festival Summer Kick Off!  First let’s talk a little about the venue, the Magnetic Hill concert site, which is a live music venue in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. This venue is in my mind, the premier outdoor venue in Atlantic Canada, in fact one of the best in North America.  Originally designed in 1984 for Pope John Paul II’s visit and a massive papal mass, the site was redesigned in 1990 as a concert venue.  It features a massive natural amphitheater at the base of a large hill, it get’s it’s name from the adjacent natural phenomena of a ‘magnetic hill’  which creates the illusion of visitors cars rolling ‘uphill‘.  It wasn’t until 1998 that the first concert was held there, a concert, where yours truly was on the stage crew.  That concert, a two day event, featured the likes of Lynrd Skynrd, Foreigner, Steppenwolf, Heart, Peter Frampton, Toronto, The Headpins it was a great weekend under sweltering heat.  The city learned from that show, and began to create infrastructure improvements to the site all the while looking for their next act which turned out to be none other than The Rolling Stones in 2005 who played for 85,000+ fans!  After that, the old adage rang true…build it, and they will come…and play great music!

1984 – Papal Visit (Pope John Paul II) (75,000)
1990 – Redesign to concert venue
1998 – Lynrd Skynrd, Foreigner, Steppenwolf, Heart, Peter Frampton, Toronto, The Headpins (35,000)
2005 – The Rolling Stones with Our Lady Peace, Tragically Hip, Maroon 5 (85,000)
2006 – Brooks & Dunn, Alan Jackson, Sugarland, George Canyon (45,000)
2007 – Tim McGraw & Faith Hill, Leahy, Johnny Reid, Jessie Farrell, (50,000)
2008 – The Eagles, John Fogarty, K.T. Tunstall, Sam Roberts (55,000)
2009 – Bon Jovi, Bachman-Cummings, State of Shock, Mobile (33,000)
2009 – AC / DC, Anvil, The Answer (80,000)
2011 – U2, Arcade Fire, Carney

Now…summer of 2009, June 27…Magnetic Hill Music Festival Summer Kick Off!  As every girl from the 80’s that was choosing to go through life ‘Living on A Prayer’, they ‘Always’ said that ‘I’ll Be There For You’ if you ever come to town…’Wanted Dead or Alive’, Bon Jovi was coming to town!

That’s right, a full sixteen years after his last appearance, the man in the habitually black tight jeans was returning to a collective swoon of formerly big haired ladies.  That’s right the guy that his momma name Jon Bongiovi was coming to town and bringing friends, namely Randy Bachman & Burton Cummings  Canadian rock legends from the days of BTO and the Guess Who.  They also had some new comers tagging along in State of Shock and Mobile.  (There was another band that I didn’t see, a french band from Montreal…I’ll never understand why the promoter feels that he absolutely ‘must’ add a french act at the beginning of every MH concert…sick)

We started the day with a trip to a friends house who lived near the concert to park our car and he drove us to the concert site.  The closer we got the thicker the bodies got, a gaggle of tour buses parked near the main entrance, looked poised for a party to break out.

We entered the concert site by the much improved new entrance walkway that had been built this year, kudos to that improvement.  Of course the first place the ladies with us wanted to hit was the ‘merch’ tent.  One hour, that’s right…one hour later they got out of there with a tank-top…they really need to address the wait at that line (and $50 for a tank-top…really!?).  I in the mean time tried out the new ‘mist tent’, which on a day as hot as this turned out to be was fantastic.  You stand under a canopy that, like it sounds, “mists” you and cools you down…awesome addition to the site!

Onstage, and just ending at the time of our entrance was Mobile from Montreal (we’d missed Alfa Rococo).  What I heard was pretty good.  As we made our way up the hill to the food vendors for some “Shangrilla” french fries, and some “Scoops” ice cream we stopped at the C103 booth to visit some friends (whomever thought to bring the telescope…brilliant).  State of Shock took the stage as we wandered to get some food playing their hits like ‘Money Honey’ and ‘The Best I Ever Had’.  They sounded great, heavier than I expected and hadn’t realized that they had a gal in the band, and another thing that surprised me with this band was how ‘short’ they played.  Next up was one of the groups I came to see, Bachman-Cummings, it was sort of like seeing The Guess Who. 

Now I’m not normally one to stand down near the stage, the operative word in that sentence being…’stand’.    The problem with that was one of the gals we were with is a Bon Jovi fanatic and there was no way I was winning that battle.   I also don’t understand this promoters overwhelming desire to not allow folding chairs into the site, and absolutely ridiculous policy as far as I’m concerned along with no cameras.  So off we went to stand (sigh) in front of the stage.   I remember seeing Burton Cummings about ten years ago in a bar, just him and his piano and it was unbelievable, I hoped this wouldn’t disappoint (was sure it wouldn’t).   The crowd down front got a little thicker as the two lads from ‘the peg’ took the stage to a racous cheer wasting no time and getting right down to business…hmmm, or taking care of business as it were.   Twice, not once, but twice Mr. Cummings commented on how nice a concert site that Magnetic Hill was, I’d have to agree, he even went so far as to say it was one of the best in North America.   They went through all the standards, telling stories, having fun singing Takin’ Care of Business,  You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, Let It Ride, American Woman.  On ‘Share The Land’, Cummings, who is a very patriotic Canuck, told eveyone how pround he was to be Canadian and for everyone to “watch CNN for 15 minutes, then go out your front door get down on your knees and kiss the ground of Canada, the last place on Earth where we get to be human beings”.  At the ages of 65 and 61, Bachman and Cummings respectively, can still perform incredibly.  Randy can still wale on that guitar, and Burton’s fingers are amazing on that keyboard…well worth seeing!

Now it was time for Bon Jovi…there were some fears before this show as ticket sales waned because of weeks of steady rain, but this day was perfect for a concert, warm, clear and concert goers realized it.   Estimates prior to the show were thinking that they would sell 20-25,000 tickets…looking around and seeing people still coming in the entrance during both  Bachman-Cummings and Bon Jovi…I knew they’d surpass that, I knew just looking that we had to be over 30,000.  Final number that was released was just over 33,000 were about to take in the boys from Jersey.  Bon Jovi hit the stage at precisely 9:oopm to the screams and squeals of the plethora of ladies in the crowd.  The hits started rolling out, songs like, Living on A Prayer, Wanted Dead or Alive, I’ll Be There For You (sung by Ritchie Sambora while JBJ took a break).  A couple of cool additions were when the band sang “Shout” by the Isley Brothers and I still had JBJ’s version of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen dancing in my head after the show.  One other cool little tribute to their preceding act was when Bon Jovi picked up a guitar saying he wanted to do something a little different and he an Ritchie kicked into playing “Takin’ Care of Business” and looked like they were having a blast doing it.  It didn’t take long for me to realize why I didn’t like standing down front…”Personal Space People”!  Good lord, if you cannot walk in a straight line without running into me…go sit somewhere.  The final song of the night during the encore, was of course, Wanted Dead or Alive…which it seemed everyone sang along with.

At the end of the show we made our way back up the hill to wait a bit for the crowd to clear, only to be ushered towards the exit about ten minutes later by security.  Here’s a tip for security, if you let people linger a little longer, there might not be such a log jam at the entrance.  As we made our way through the new exit/entrance area the crowd thickened, then I realized that it got dark…hmmm.  It dawned on me that the lights on the street between the zoo and the water park, the street everyone was walking on, were all…off!?  Whomever’s job it was to make sure these lights stayed on this night should be severely reprimanded (and have been by most concert goers in the paper and on the radio).  Not only was this dangerous with 30K+ people filing out of the concert, it made us look bad, and put a damper on an otherwise good evening.  My advice to the city/site is that something has to be done about the ‘bottle neck’ that is created at the covered bridge at the entrance to the Magnetic Hill boardwalk.  This slowed everything to a crawl (that and the two morons who somehow parked their car on the bridge to sell T-Shirts before police ‘asked’ them to move).  Tip to organizers, a new exit directly from Mountain Raod to the concert site needs to be created that is paved, lighted and secure.  Perhaps another addition, create an alternate exit to Gorge Road from the site (obviously not the one backstage) and put a sidewalk down Gorge Road.

My thoughts on improvements that could be made:

Allow people to linger longer at the end of the show.
Make sure all exits are well lit, secure, and unimpeded.
Create additional access (exit) to Mountain Rd.
Create additional access (exit) to Gorge Rd.
Allow point and shoot cameras (no removable lens)
Place at least one video screen on the hill for seated viewers.

Overall…it was a great ‘kick-off’ to all the concerts that are gracing the Maritimes this summer…Bon Jovi, AC/DC, Paul McCartney, KISS and many more.