sled island highlights

It’s Monday and I am still riding a musical high from the amazing time I had last week.  Tuesday started off right with a trip to the Ironwood for Father’s Day to see Meaghan Smith play.  Byron and I had just seen her on the Sunday prior in Canmore and knew we just had to share her sweet tunes with our family.  She is an incredible singer and I am so excited to see where and what she does next.  She mentioned that she is putting out a holiday album and will be touring it as well which will be a great family Christmas night out in the future!

Wednesday was incredibly busy as we had the National Music Centre Design Launch that night at the Uptown Theatre.  It was a great party and a fabulous presentation by my boss Andrew Mosker and the Lead Architect Brad Cloepfil from Portland.  A big night for Cantos/NMC and for the city.  Byron and I got media passes for Sled Island which was great as I was writing pieces for enRoute and Swerve (1 & 2).  Anyways, I would love to share the highlights of our three days of music which actually turned out to be more than just Sled Island, but also having the chance to see two music legends and also one of my favourite bands. Enjoy.

Thursday

Beautifully harmonized Canadian rock that occasionally gets heavy.  Dreamy tunes.

Made me laugh until there was tears.  Beautiful heartfelt songs.  Incredible stage presence.

California surfer dude rock.  Complete with a sitar. And a great guitarist.

Justin Townes Earle: Son of legend Steve Earle.  Early early Americana roots-inspired music.  Amazing guitarist and a killer upright bassist.

Friday

Steve Earle & The Dukes & Duchesses: We got to see the amazing Steve Earle and his Dukes & Duchesses at the Jubilee.  It was incredible.  Three hours of music and two encores.  Was a huge highlight of my year.

Saturday

A longtime Calgary favourite playing rippin’ spaghetti western.  A fabulous Tubby Dog show.  It was incredible and I hope they start to play more shows again.  Missed them.

: I saw them play in Vancouver like 3 years ago and I totally fell in love with their 60s garage sound.  This was the second time they have ever played Calgary so I was super stoked to be able to see them play.  We picked up their LP which provides a good time to dance around the living room.

Brian Wilson: I was given two tickets from work to see the Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys show at the Jubilee and I absolutely could not pass them up for Sled Island shows.  I am a huge Beach Boys fan and the opportunity to see a genius at work is an absolutely amazing gift.  I loved the show so much and his band was absolutely amazing.  They even gave Cantos a huge shoutout for the tour that they did the day before.  You can see the picture below of my co-worker JL who was mentioned in their shoutout for conducting the tour!

The Sadies: This part of the night was totally unexpected!  We had been wanting to go to The Sadies show as well but since we had these Brian Wilson tickets we didn’t end up buying tickets.  However, after the BW show we thought we might as well go up to Bowness Hall and see if the show was still on — and it was!  We were able to sneak right in and enjoy the last bit of the show plus two encores.  It was amazing to see my favourite Canadian band so unexpectedly. Best night ever.

Cute surfy band from San Fran.  Didn’t stick around for too long because it was after midnight and I was exhausted and starving.

What an amazing, full weekend.  If only every weekend had this much music happening and I could see my favourite artists perform so easily.  Already starting to plan for Folk Fest & daydreaming about our summer vacation. xo