An intimate evening with Blue Rodeo (and Kitties)
Ever been somewhere and realized, all of a sudden, “Wow… I’m one lucky schmuck to be here!” That’s what hit me a few times on Wednesday while at The Black Sheep Inn. Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor are touring as a duo to promote Blue Rodeo’s upcoming album (“The Things We Left Behind”, due out November 10th), and they chose just five intimate venues to test out their new tunes. I’ve seen these guys play on a few different occasions in past years, but always with a sea of people between me and the stage and with them looking like little specks; to watch them play at the Black Sheep with a relatively small group was an absolute treat. Amanda did some intros and I went with her to take photos for CBC, above.
Kathleen Edwards opened, with her usual spunk and humour. Here is “Smile” — in tribute to her last show before she gets her braces removed.
Then Jim and Greg took the stage, and were accompanied by Anne Lindsay (violin), Julian Armour (cello) and Julie Fader (flute and vocals), as well as Kathleen. The adoration in the packed room was palpable. This show sold out in 10 minutes, and the woman beside me had flown in from Winnipeg to be there. Here’s a sampling of the evening…
“One Light Left in Heaven” — a new one:
“Hasn’t Hit Me Yet” — with huge audience participation:
“Lost Together”:
[Apologies for the unsteadiness and occasional funky cropping... I was filming these on my point-n-shoot with my left hand while taking photos on my SLR with my right hand.]
As if this weren’t enough for one evening, we also met Black Sheep owner Paul’s recent adoptee — a tabby cat and her six 2-week-old kittens:
A memorable evening, all in all.
The concert will be airing on CBC sometime in the next few weeks. I’ll post here if I find out any details.
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Post-script #1: Have you weighed in about your Candy Buffet must-haves??
Post-script #2 (for Ottawa-heads on facebook): I’m giving away two tickets to the Sens vs. Rangers game on November 14th. I’ll be drawing a winner on Monday, November 9th at 9 a.m. EST. Click here for details & to enter.
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Wow, I got goosebumps watching “Hasn’t Hit Me Yet’ I’m sure it was fantastic to be there for that!
Thank you for sharing! What an awesome night of music! lucky! Photos are beautiful! The videos are awesome!
hugs!
ps. Blue Rodeo are playing a rooftop on Tuesday at 2:30pm Blue Jays Way and King St. – filming a tv special.
Thanks for posting pics and vids – totally enjoying listening to BR while at work! :)
Extremely thorough job on the blog post, videos and pictures! I don’t know if it was the intimacy, the new powerful and deep music, or the string section but never before has Blue Rodeo affected my emotions so strongly. It just carried me, and the people I spoke with, to places in our minds and memories we hadn’t visited in a long time. Magic!
I’ve been working on a blog post to capture this. I’ll ping you if I get it done.
Cheers,
Allan Isfan
@isfan
Here’s my attempt at capturing the magic of the |Blue Rodeo night. BTW, based on the camera location, I was about 3ft to your left! I used one of the videos you posted … hope you don’t mind.
http://favequest.com/2009/11/10/blue-rodeo-intimate-magic/
Cheers,
@isfan
Excellent post – and what a great band. Thank you.
This was at least the 30th time I have seen Blue Rodeo, but without a doubt my favorite of all!! I had goosebumps most of the night, and couldn’t beleive I was there to experience this. It was so nice to actually get to mingle and chat with the band after the show also. They are real “canadian” gentlemen! What a gem they are!