I admit it - I am an opera novice. Over the 30+ years of being in the retail music and movie business, my first hand experiences in the opera world are limited to seeing Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis in Toronto several times, watching a DVD performance of Madam Butterfly and selling the occasional opera CD or DVD. I say all this so you will read this review of Measha Brueggergosman's performance at Imperial Theatre on March 6th with a grain of salt - I may sound like I don't know what I'm talking about. First off, I want to say a huge THANK YOU to good friend Holli G. for the gift of 2 front row tickets to see one of Canada's, maybe the world's, best know sopranos. We certainly are familiar with who Measha Brueggergosman is from her many appearances on TV including singing at the opening ...
MoreMONDAY, JULY 15 - by Mary Anne - Do you remember Kyp Harness? If you do - let us know. We know Kyp Harness - not well, but we like his music - a lot. How do we know Kyp? Well he was originally from Sarnia, but moved to Toronto in the 80's before we lived here, but we had heard his name mentioned occasionally as being a really good songwriter as well as a published author of several books. We had his CD's for sale, so we decided to buy Welcome to the Revolution for ourselves. We were not disappointed. His socially conscience lyrics are mixed with a good dose of wry humour such as in the song 'Chemical Valley' that was inspired by his hometown. Recently we were contacted by another former Sarnia resident, Dustin Kuypers, who also ended up in Toronto to be part of an interesting team with bright business ...
MoreHaving been a long-time Rolling Stones fan and not missing a farewell tour since the early 1980's, it was unavoidable that I would find a way to attend the most recent farewell show the band had at the Air Canada Center on May 25, 2022 - regardless of the high ticket price. With one exception all previous shows had been huge stadium shows, ranging from very good (Steel Wheels at Lansing) to old and tired (Comerica Park's Biggest Band tour) so the Air Canada show seemed almost intimate compared to some of the shows from the past. This is the first show that I have attended where the Stones did not have an opening act, opting instead for more Rolling Stones - they played for a full 2 and a half hours with plenty of highlights. They hit the stage at 8:45 with the usual opener on this tour Get Off My Cloud. ...
MoreSer·en·dip·i·ty - 1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident. A serendipitous event is how it all started. Mike Zinger, mandolin player, promoter and all round good guy who plays in the Fred Eaglesmith Travelling Steam Show, happened to walked into Cheeky Monkey on a beautiful April day when we had the doors wide open to let in the spring warmth. He was walking up and down Christina Street dropping off posters for the then upcoming Friday May 10th show at The Eagles Club. As we chatted, Mike happened to glance over my shoulder and caught sight of the board listing all the events we host in-store as well as sell tickets for. When he happened to ask if we would sell tickets for the show, we of course agreed. It was serendipity - a true happy accident he walked in that day. As a result, we are pleased to say we helped sell over half ...
MoreThe Imperial Theatre was the chosen venue for what has become the annual event of the Collected Works of Larry Towell featuring musical accompaniment of Mike Stevens. For those not familiar with Larry Towell, he is a world renowned photo-journalist. Larry's "subjects" are not pretty flowers or the typical landscapes of many photographers. He specializes in showing the aftermath of tragic situations both natural and man made. His years spent in places as far reaching as Iraq, El Salvador, Rwanda, Haiti and New Orleans have resulted in creating a disturbing yet enlightening body of work. The faces of survivors, the destruction of property are all evident, leaving you wondering how do people endure. Larry excels in showing us a side of life we never see in our safe homes here in Canada, not even on the news. The Rwanda genocide, soldiers in Iraq patrolling what look like empty streets, flooded cemeteries of ...
MoreCheeky Charlie, Roland and I were all set to go to the Imperial Theatre to see the current play HAVING HOPE AT HOME presented by Theatre Sarnia. Unfortunately, I was not feeling well, so we decided not to go. BUT thanks to good friend, Barb Toye who did go, we have a review for you. From the sounds of it, we missed an excellent play and performance. The play runs until Feb. 25th. Having Hope at Home - Reviewed by Barb Toye The excellent interior set was evocative of a semi-shabby rural farmhouse under refurbishment, with a cozy bedroom to the left, kitchen at the back, dining table mid-stage right and loveseat in foreground. A jazzy classical guitar piece was played during the opening speeches which unfortunately overrode some of the dialogue a bit. Periodically through the play snippets of McGarrigle Sisters songs were heard, in reference to the leading man's ...
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