Concert Review: Calgary Artists for Haitian Relief

The Calgary Artist for Haitian Relief concert was held on Wednesday night. It took me so long to put up this post because I REALLY wanted to include a video that I took and the upload process was all screwy. No fear, all is well...we have the video and now a few words about the night.

The night started out with obvious success because the organizers were able to wrangle in my favorite, the Mayor of C-Town, Dave Bronconnier (Bronco) to open with a speech that made me want to go and win an Olympic gold medal...I don't remember what he said, but I remember being inspired.

15 year old Jan Lisiecki opened the night musically on the piano playing some classical tunes...with his eyes closed the whole time. This kid probably is more famous internationally than all the other people combined...he once played with Yo-Yo Ma...don't know who that is? Get cultured bitches.

Then came The Dudes and Michael Bernard Fitzgerald for the rest first act. It was unfortunate that the sound was screwed in the first half. The vocals could not be heard and MBF was drowned out by his own choir.

The second half after the intermission included Kris Demenor, Corb Lund, The Polyjesters and Denise Clarke, Woodpigeon, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra and Sheri D. Wilson...this lady did some weird spoken word thing about Alberta - so unfortunate.

All in all it was a pretty good concert...for what it was. You know, thrown together pretty fast with each artist playing a couple of songs and Corb Lund...not really taking it seriously (would you? The man is nominated for a Juno - so is Nickelback, but I won't go there in the spirit of Haitian Relief).

I feel like there are better Calgary artists out there, but the ones that they gave us were pretty legit. I mean, I tried to hire Chad Vangaalen once for $400 but his people turned me down..so I doubt that he would play for free.

At the very end, David Gray (CBC radio personality) who was hosting the evening, got everyone to come out on stage and sing Stand By Me. It was completely awkward and thank God MBF likes to do spur of the moment things because it was an idea bound for failure. Watch this video...with a little narration by Beth.

The money raised from this concert went to help a Canadian founded orphanage in Haiti. Cute.

Verdict: 3.05 Stars

XOXO
Jes...