Concert Series

Spring 2012 Schedule

Chad VanGaalen

January 13, 2012 | with special guests the Cannon Bros.
West End Cultural Centre


VanGaalen is an ambitious musician, and not afraid of experimentation. He spends time recording a spectrum of different music – from the folk-rock sounds VanGaalen fans have come to love, to recordings of trains going by his Calgary home. Diaper Island is definitely his most rocking album to date. This catalogue of songs invites listeners to gently explore VanGaalen’s distinctive creativity.

New Country Rehab

March 15, 2012
Park Theatre
Tickets
$17.50 in advance.

Take one of Canada’s most talented fiddle players, add an intrepid guitarist, season with a percussionist who grooves on saw blades as readily as he does cookie sheets, stir vigorously with one of the most versatile double bass players in the country and you’ve conjured up the tasty and eclectic brew that is New Country Rehab.

The Once

March 20, 2012
Park Theatre
Tickets
$20 in advance.

As a trio, The Once have kept it uncomplicated, depending on the power of their voices and acoustic instruments. Lead singer Geraldine Hollett, has an instrument of rare power; she is a singer who can still a noisy room, so expressive, she can tell a novel-length story with a few words. Accompanied by Phil Churchill and Andrew Dale on guitar, mandolin, fiddle and bouzouki, they create a perfect blend of voice and melody.

John K. Samson & The Provincial Band

March 27, 2012
West End Cultural Centre
Tickets
$20 in advance.

John K. Samson will release his first full-length solo album, Provincial, on January 24. The album is an homage to Manitoba, with hymns for the departed and rockers for the living; songs about dying villages, Icelandic longing, snowplows, broken glass, satellites, hockey skates, and staff room romances.

Shane Koyczan

March 31, 2012
West End Cultural Centre
Tickets on sale February 4
$17.50 in advance.

A 2011 Winnipeg Folk Festival fan-favourite! Shane Koyczan is one of the world’s premier spoken word performers will be back in Winnipeg with his “experimental acoustic folk” band, The Short Story Long. Their new record Remembrance Year is due out in mid-March.

The Cat Empire  - SOLD OUT

April 4, 2012 | with special guests Tinpan Orange
Garrick Centre
Tickets
$35 in advance.

2011 is the year The Cat Empire is celebrating the tenth anniversary of their first show as the six-piece band. Since their humble beginnings touring across Australia in borrowed cars and sleeping on the floors of friends, they’ve played over 800 shows, have more than 100 songs to their credit and have sold over one million albums and DVDs.

Joel Plaskett Emergency

April 21, 2012 | with special guest Frank Turner
Garrick Centre
Tickets
$27.50 in advance.

For those who wondered how Plaskett could follow-up the success of his triple record Three, Scrappy Happiness is the answer. While Three was ambitious, Scrappy Happiness is both ambitious and innovative. The project harkens back to a time when music went from studio to radio to audience in an immediate way – without months of calculation and set up.

Great Lake Swimmers

May 4, 2012 | with special guests Cold Specks
West End Cultural Centre
Tickets
$25.00 in advance.

New Wild Everywhere is the follow-up to Great Lake Swimmers’ critically acclaimed 2009 album Lost Channels. For a band whose storied location recordings in out-of-the-way places have brought their output to an almost mythical status, longtime Great Lake Swimmers producer Andy Magoffin was thrilled to be asked to capture the new album in a real studio – Revolution Recording in Toronto – with no extension cords, boat rides, generators or bad weather to mess things up.

Beirut

July 23, 2012
Burton Cummings Theatre
Tickets
$35.00 in advance.

Beirut leader Zach Condon’s music is often synonymous with the exotic mysteries of world travel. Since Beirut’s last album, 2007′s The Flying Club Cup, sang a love letter to France (with a 2009 stop-off in Mexico for the March of the Zapotec EP) many have asked where his songs would voyage next. Many guesses, but few predicted the inward journey Condon has achieved on The Rip Tide, an album with the most introspective and memorable songs of his young career.

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