Hello everyone,
I hope you all had an incredible holiday season. With 2015 in the house, I thought it would be nice to look back on a wonderful year of shows. While much of the team has talked about albums or songs, I will be looking back on moments from specific shows that still give me goosebumps to this day. This post will also serve as a preview to 2015 in what’s upcoming for shows and ACR as an organization.
Best of 2014 (In no order)
1. Black Sabbath – Halifax – Following an exceptional set by Reignwolf, Ozzy took the stage doing his trademark laugh before the band went into “War Pigs” with much applause and vocals throughout the venue, a really great moment at a show I thought I’d never see.
2. Maritime Countryfest – Fredericton – As it was my first time covering, I had no idea what to expect from this event. I had the opportunity to see many great acts such as Doc Walker, Chad Brownlee, Deric Ruttan and more, which were incredible regardless of the weather. The key moment for me was seeing Cory Tetford(Crush) rocking with Alan Doyle on the Crush classic “King for a Day”. With Great Big Sea and Crush being in my top east coast bands, that was a special moment.
3. City and Colour -Halifax – Having seen Dallas several times, I know to expect an awesome show that gets better each time. Just when I assumed this particular gig could not get any greater, Dallas proclaims “I have never played this song!” and goes into a seemingly well rehearsed version of “The Grace”, a song he recorded in 2006 as part of the “Neverending White Lights” project. This was it’s live debut for Dallas and he continued to play it following the Halifax show.
4. Big Red Music Festival – Charlottetown – in 2014, this great festival(which has experienced many name changes) decided to get “bigger” than the usual Canada Day weekend shows. To achieve this, they had one more day of music take place on July 12. Incredibly, this brought The Killers to Atlantic Canada for the first time ever, and also included acts such as Death Cab for Cutie, and local favourite Matt Mays on a perfect sunny day. For me, the opening segment for The Killers was an impressive moment. The group walked onto the stage as “Blitzkrieg Bop” played over the loudspeakers in honour of Tommy Ramone(who had just passed away the night before). Following a brief moment, the band erupted into their smash hit “Mr. Brightside” to loud crowd cheers and sing along. This opening moment had a buzz similar to when Paul McCartney launched into “Drive My Car” on the Halifax Commons exactly five years earlier to the night. McCartney, however was a show I did not attend(regretting to this day) and could only relive through YouTube, so THANK YOU to Big Red for bringing The Killers, giving the chance to experience buzz like that first hand.
5. FredRock Festival — Fredericton – 2014 marked a year of major changes for the event. Earlier this year, I referred to this as “New Weekend, New Venue, New Format” as it was exactly that. The festival was held in late August at a new spot in Downtown Fredericton which was partially covered to keep everyone cool and dry, and most importantly, was split into two days, with two separate events each day, something unheard of in Atlantic Canada up to that point.For the first time ever, I saw one of my favourites The Trews do a two set affair with acoustic and electric tunes. Perhaps my favourite moment of the set was the acoustic version of “Ishmael & Maggie” which was near the closing, prompting a vibrant sing along from the crowd, myself included. The 2014 FredRock format and the unique show formats artists such as One Bad Son, Sass Jordan, The Glorious Sons and more presented made our fourth year in attendance even better than the ones before it. Looking forward to our 5th year.(and the festival’s 7th!) When you ask me my favourite festival, I usually tell you this one, for many reasons difficult to get into one post.
6. Pemberton Music Festival –Pemberton BC – For the first time in 6 years, after a storied 2008 event, music returned to Pemberton BC and we felt we had to be there representing the East Coast. This event was our sole festival coverage taking place outside the region in 2014. From an organizational point of view, this festival was flawless, especially with crowd control. If you were camping, you remained on site all weekend, including hot showers and great food(when is the last time you attended a festival serving Pad Thai?) and if you wanted to stay off site, a motor coach would whisk you to Whistler where accommodations were a plenty. When the shows ended, some 30 motor coaches would be ready to load fans and they would come back until everyone was gone, no pushing, no standing on a moving bus, and no traffic to or from. It is my hope that we can one day have a big event in Atlantic Canada with organization to this level. The musical highlight for me was the fact that the lineup was so diverse. I was able to see The Violent Femmes and Randy Newman within feet of each other, and even see comedy from Bob Saget and The Trailer Park Boys. Now that, to me, is a festival. 2015 will be incredible and we hope you will represent the East Coast in the most beautiful place on earth.
These are just a few of the great moments I experienced in 2014, and I cannot wait to experience these events and many more we plan to attend in 2015 with you, the great music fans of Atlantic Canada and beyond.
2014 was also an incredible year for ACR. We launched a new website, which experienced tremendous visitor response, crossed 10,000 fans on Facebook and sent dozens of excited contest winners to spectacular shows.
This year will mark the 5th anniversary of ACR in February, and we have great contests and more in the works for that time and later in the year. We have been listening to our fans and will bring many great new website features over the coming weeks that enhance concert discovery even more.
It is you, our loyal reader base that makes all of this worthwhile, and myself and the team thank you for being the incredible supporters that you have become.
Happy New Year! See you out in the crowd!
Cole McLean
Founder
Atlantic Canada Rocks
