She did for country music what Harry Potter did for literature. She didn’t just cross over genres, she tore down the walls. It seemed like everyone was listening to Shania. In the grocery stores, in the mall. On all the pop/rock and country radio stations.
This convention truly was spectacular. Not just all the music and going-ons of the panels, but that sense of family and community that makes the SPNfamily unique. There is an instant familiarity and openness amongst the participants of events like these – built upon shared interests of the show, for sure, but after 15 years of that show, and 12 or so of the convention circuit, even if it’s your first convention, or you only just started watching the show and diving a bit into the fandom – there are welcoming arms if you want them. A family if and when you need it.
Ok, well, wow – that voice, first of all. That voice. Seriously, what an amazing, beautiful, smooth voice. This must be what velvet sounds like.
Ah, Edmonton Folk Fest, I love you! After two years of COVID absences, what a return to the Hill! It […]
Listen… there are so many things I could say about The Tea Party and The Tea Party live… Things I’ve […]
What do you get when you cross a rock concert, an opera-house, and a lecture on Artificial Intelligence (AI)? You […]
And that feeling of ten people in the audience, that intimacy; somehow, at the same time, those 600-700 people that felt like ten, sound like a stadium when we sang. I think we missed Josh. And music. And concerts.
Being in spaces again with about a thousand people, sharing this love of a tv show and its actors and musicians in person, shed that two year old skin of lockdowns, anxiety, unknowns, obsession with numbers of cases, deaths, and hospital beds and brought a renewal of life – a phoenix bursting through its pandemic ashes.
Music soothes. Music heals. It educates, elucidates, captivates. It inspires. It can change the world. Losing live music hurt. So when my friend sent that invitation (To her neighbourhood Edmonton Folk Fest concert), I could feel my whole face instantly light up. I felt a huge weight, a COVID virus-shaped weight, an isolated, mask-wearing, physically-distanced, grocery shopping is the only outing-shaped weight, lifted off of my shoulders.
As I was processing all the emotions this weekend, especially those surrounding endings of phases in life, or major health scares, or losing loved ones, I kept saying to myself, you really have to grab the opportunities to love and do what you can when you can. If something means the world to you, don’t hesitate. Do the thing.
In Search of Rock Gods 