Archive for the ‘Music Events’ Category
Hedwig & The Angry Inch
Being more of a punk rocker than a theatre-goer, when I caught wind of this production happening in Medicine Hat, I couldn’t resist getting on board. Here’s the scoop…
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical about a fictional rock and roll band (The Angry Inch) front by an East German transgender singer. The musical premiered off-broadway in 1998 and the film adaptation was released in 2000, starring and produced by writer John Cameron Mitchell.
The local production features 11 full songs, with the band on stage throughout the entire show, a band featuring a handful of local punk rock veterans (One Shot Left, Rex Stiff, Iverdale). You can guarantee this will be the heaviest rock musical to ever run in Medicine Hat!
When: March 12-13, 18-20
Where: Community Theatre Arts Centre (1221 10th Avenue SW)
Tickets: Adults -- $24, Students -- $19 (with valid student ID)
Tickets available online at http://www.ctacmedhat.com or by phoning Della Jesse at 403-502-3477.
(Warning: The following move-clip has some coarse language)
SNFU - March 10
SNFU, another classic Canadian punk rock band, is scheduled to return to our city on Wednesday March 10th, this time to rock the infamous Royal Hotel. On top of their always entertaining performance, they will be showing an exclusive screening of the new documentary Open Your Mouth And Say… Mr. Chi Pig, an in depth look at SNFU’s colourful frontman. If you’re not familiar with Chi Pig, he’s well-known in the punk rock community for his theatrical style show, full of obscure props and costumes. He is truly one of Canada’s best performers and stills rock harder than most bands half his age.
Tickets for the show are $15 (only available at the door), with a door time of 6PM. Joining SNFU are BDFM from Calgary and Medicine Hat’s own hardcore outfit Helltrack.
http://www.myspace.com/snfuband
http://www.myspace.com/bdfm
http://www.myspace.com/helltrackca
(Warning: The following trailer has some coarse language)
I’m just going to come right out and say I’ve never been to a night show at the Stampede. Mainly because it always seemed like the Stampede Committee had an affinity for booking a series of washed up one-hit wonders. But, I am happy to announce that this pattern has been broken!
LeAnn Rimes will be gracing the grandstand with her presence next July, along with Travis Tritt and the Little River Band. Okay, so its a small step up but its a start right? LeAnn Rimes is an enormous leap from many of the lack-lustre headliners we’ve had in the past and Travis Tritt’s mullet will surely be a crowd pleaser. But possibly the best part of the three night extravaganza will be the Little River Band’s Australian accents. All jokes aside, all three bands are incredibly talented and the night shows this year are going to be fantastic I’m sure.
Yet another surprise improvement is the ability to purchase E-tickets. The inconvenience of buying tickets through the stampede office is no more, unless you’re into that kind of thing, in which case I’m sure the office will still be selling tickets. Unfortunately the E-ticket process has been a but hit or miss as of late, but don’t worry, tickets can still be purchased the old-fashioned way.
Tickets for LeAnn Rimes ring in at $50, Travis Tritt can be enjoyed for $40, and Little River Band hold great value at $30. As usual packages to all three shows can be purchased as well for $100 during the Christmas Season, but you better buy them up quick since the price will increase to $110 by April 1st and to $120 by June 1st. Tickets go on sale at 10:00 am this morning at the site below. Best of luck to you all as you endeavor to see the best Night Shows Medicine Hat has had to offer thus far!
Videos after The Jump:
On Saturday, November 28, Taylor and I went to the Three Days Grace show opened by The Used and Default at The Medicine Hat Arena. Overall it was a good show and one of the few non-punk rock shows I have been to.
Default is a fairly good band, and it being the first time I have heard them since about 2003, I enjoyed their performance except for the fact that the lead guitarist, Jeremy Hora, looked very apathetic. It looked like he could care less that he was in front of a thousand people. Luckily Default’s bass player, Dave Benedict, who bore a striking resemblance to Liam Neeson, used his Qui-Gon Jin Force powers to get the crowd pumped for the upcoming acts.
The Used probably had the best stage presence of the 3 bands in terms of engaging the audience, but that fact was dampened by the lackluster lead singer, Bert McCracken, who kept calling everyone in the crowd a “little bitch” and saying he was going to “F— everyone in the crowd.” I looked around at the crowd and realized the show was All Ages, so I imagine the very young impressionable minds ate it up and the older crowd must have thought “What kind of a show is this?” In addition, although the music itself sounded good, it was nearly impossible to hear Bert McCracken’s voice over the roar of the instruments.
Three Days Grace, who I have not listened to since their first CD, put on a great performance. I found myself pretty stoked to see them, especially their drummer, Neil Sanderson. Being a drummer myself, I usually fixate on the drums during any band performance. I found Neil Sanderson’s technique quite interesting if for no other reason than he most often keeps time with his left hand on a right handed kit. THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »
Josh Cokerill - Photo via MySpace
Here’s a bit of a different show; Playing November 20th, 2009 at The Ottoman is country rock group, Josh Cockerill with guests, The Warped 45s who are a bit more rock, but still have that country and folk sound to them. Both groups are Canadian and hail from Toronto, although I specifically listened to a song by The Warped 45s entitled “10 Day Poem For Saskatchewan” – in fact that is what their latest album is called. Which means they might have some roots over near here, more specifically, Josh Cokerill grew up in Alberta. The show will start at 9:30.
A bit about Josh Cockerill:
Toronto songwriter Joshua Cockerill found his country roots growing up in Alberta. After moving to Toronto, he took to writing and performing alternative country music, reflecting his western pride with an eastern big-city sensibility. After kicking around the local music scene for a few years, Joshua decided to break his piggy bank and independently finance his first recordings. “I’ve known I wanted to be a musician since I was ten years old,” says Cockerill, “You could say that everything I saved up over the years was preparing for the making of this album.”
Three Days Grace - Image from Ticketmaster.ca
There’s a lot of big names coming through Medicine Hat lately, is this a sign of our city growing up?
Either way, Three Days Grace with guests The Used will be playing at the Arena in just over a month’s time on November 28th, 2009 (7PM). Although I’m not a huge fan of Three Days Grace myself, but their newest video (shown below) is pretty sweet; albeit, a bit lame in some ways. They are also a hugely successful rock band with tons of radio hits. Their last released album, “Life Starts Now” sold more than 6 million worldwide which is a nice accomplishment for the Canadian rock band from Norwood, Ontario.
The Used on the other hand are an American post-hardcore (punk/rock/emo for the laymen) band that is touring to promote their newest album, “Artwork” which was released on August 31st, 2009. It’s quite odd for me listing The Used as a guest considering they are definitely the more popular band and have also achieved Gold and Platinum statuses in more than six countries worldwide. I also quite enjoy their music.
Tickets are $44.50 (floor) or $39.50 (seats) or, supposedly, you can get a VIP package for this event. What that means, I have no idea, but it will cost you $250.00 or $175.00. Call 403-502-8777 for more details on those.
Uh oh, is this another semi-positive article about a non-My96FM event? Sound the Kim Johnston alarms! I kid, I kid. Some people will know what I am talking about.
Large scale punk rock is coming to Medicine Hat on March 12th, 2010!
One of Canada’s current, most popular rock bands, Billy Talent is on tour to promote their summer release of the album, Billy Talent III. They are touring with Canada’s Alexisonfire who are also promoting their summer release of their new album, Old Crows / Young Cardinals. Backing those two big names is the punk band, Against Me! who’s popularity has been rapidly growing since their 2007 release of the album, New Wave. Against Me! vocalist and guitar player, Tom Gabel has pushed this Florida based bands success with his unique lyrical voice and song structure.
The show is being sponsored and presented by ROCK 105.3. The three band line up are going to put on an awesome show. If you have not pre-ordered your tickets, then I strongly recommend getting them as soon as possible as they are now available at tixx.ca
THE JUMP – Read the rest of this entry »
Young Galaxy, Bend Sinister, Modichia Poster
A great independent music line-up going on Tuesday night, October 20th as presented by the Young & Pretty Folk Music Association. The cover will be $5 and will start at 9PM. It’s been a while since I’ve done a post for a Young & Pretty event, mostly because of my lack of knowledge on the great indie scene in this town, but also, there’s generally 1-3 shows happening a week so it’s hard to keep up on sometimes. The best source to get this information is on the Young & Pretty Folk Music Association MySpace page or by joining their Facebook group. This show features Young Galaxy, an indie-rock band from Montreal, Bend Sinister an extremely varied folkish-rockish type ensemble from Vancouver and lastly, Mordichia, a local band of experimental music fame.
Facebook Event
Young Galaxy @ MySpace
Bend Sinister @ MySpace
Mordichia @ MySpace
Scatterheart last performed at the Ottoman Lounge a couple months ago and it looks like they are back for more. This time they will be playing on Friday, October 16th starting at 9:30PM at the Ottoman Lounge again. I should also mention that they were in the Medicine Hat even before that on their tour with Bif Naked. After the last show, a local blogger and avid-music-listener type of fellow, Chris did a couple blog posts on his site about the band and his experience with them at their last show which were an interesting read. Scatterheart, the band themselves, even did a full video blog about the Ottoman Lounge and their experience in Medicine Hat (video below) -- talk about dedication!
Last Night’s Scatterheart Concert (via Toxic TuneZ)
Facebook Event
Official Website
Scatterheart @ MySpace
Akon in Medicine Hat on November 1, 2009.
Singer-songwriter, Akon is coming to Medicine Hat to perform at The Medicine Hat Arena with Danny Fernandes and Girlicious on Sunday, November 1st, 2009.
*UPDATE* The show has now been moved to the Cypress Centre.
Akon is a Senegales-American R&B singer-songwriter who rose to recognition in 2004 and has since put out a number of radio-recognized songs that, like most rap, include a large amount of sexual innuendo, as well as typical rap-stereotype references to drugs, alcohol, f-words, n-words, and much more (you can already tell I am a fan… Sarcasm intended).
Some hit songs include: Right Now (Na Na Na), Smack That, Gangsta, Ghetto, most of the content of which can easily be guessed by the name of the song.
Tickets are $49 or $69 and can be purchased at www.tixx.ca
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