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Canyon
made fans Smile
Concert a homecoming for Maritimer on the rise
Peter
North, Freelance
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
It's
a homecoming of sorts when a transplanted Maritimer who cut
his professional teeth in this province and a boy from Lacombe
take over the Jubilee Auditorium for a night.
George
Canyon, whose roots are still deep in East Coast bedrock, but
who calls southern Alberta home, and his special guest Gord
Bamford of Lacombe, made it a night of regional stars with national
hits as more than 1,700 country music fans made it to the Jube
last night.
With
Canyon's star still rising since it was propelled by TV's Nashville
Star three years ago, it was a pretty safe bet for the promotion
team of House of Blues and Gold and Gold to give the ruggedly
handsome and character individual his first crack at headlining
a major venue.
Working
on the road with an extremely talented six-piece backing band,
Canyon strode to centre stage, tipped his hat to the fans and
started in early on a string of tunes lifted from his latest
album release Somebody Wrote Love.
Framed
by triangular beams of light coming at the stage from a variety
of angles, Canyon, who was apparently slightly under the weather,
showed he has developed into a smooth operator and those high-pressure
performances on network television and pulling opening slots
for acts like Tim McGraw have paid off.
The
man's a natural when it comes to communicating with a crowd,
whether it's relating an anecdote about his wife adding new
horses to the family stable or talking about songwriters who
have slipped him some great material over the last two years,
Gordie Sampson being one of them.
While
we first were introduced to Canyon with some smooth country
ballads on his first few releases, the tempos and sonic sheens
are becoming more varied with every recording.
It's
a catchy chorus that pulls just ever so much in the direction
of pop that makes Your Smile work and it's just plain old heartfelt
sentiment wrapped around a strong melody that has made Somebody
Wrote Love a winner.
The
doubling up of Happy Man and Ladders to Climb built a bridge
between honky-tonk heaven and southern rock stomp as band members
were given no shortage of space to slap mandolin, fiddle, keyboard
and guitar solos into the mix.
Canyon
and company even took time to make a special alteration to this
particular show, with so many members of the Edmonton-area Armed
Forces in attendance. An instrumental fiddle interpretation
of Danny Boy was the lead into I Want You to Live which is also
from the latest disc.
Bamford
shone in his half-hour acoustic set that confirmed once again
he's hardcore country act that is deservedly drawing attention
stateside for his writing. Highlights of his set included Stubborn
Blood, We Were All Heroes and Little Guy.
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