In the Media

Canada's Great Big Sea rolls into Edmonds

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:25:07 GMT

Canada's Great Big Sea rolls into Edmonds

Huge in their home country, folk rock group continues to build international following

The Enterprise Newspapers staff

Canadian folk-rock band Great Big Sea brings their distinctive sound to the Edmonds Center for the Arts Nov. 20.

Forged from the remnants of two other bands, Great Big Sea found its feet on the unforgiving streets of St. John's, Newfoundland and dragged themselves out of the bars to release their Warner major label debut “Up” in the spring of 1995, propelling it to platinum status with relentless touring and a raucous live show.

Their next effort “Play” enjoyed even bigger success and the band moved its show into hockey stadiums across the nation. U.S. labels took notice and GBS was subsequently signed to Sire. Accolades and a solid cult following ensued. When asked about their unlikely success, founding member Bob Hallett is typically candid: “We weren't the best musicians in town,” he says, “we just wanted it more. We were driven by a bloody-minded need to succeed and we were rewarded for our bleeding.”

The band has earned several major music awards in Canada, including Entertainer of the Year award at the East Coast Music Awards for every year between 1996 and 2000. In 2001, they decided not to submit their name for nomination in order to allow other bands to compete. They have also been nominated for several Juno Awards (similar to the Grammys in the U.S.) including Group of the Year in 1998 and 2005.

In 2005, the band released its long-awaited “traditional” album, “The Hard and the Easy,” on which they recorded their favourite Newfoundland party songs. Their lastest album “Fortune's Favour” finds them embracing new sounds and new ideas, pushing the boundaries of their own art and music.

The group has traversed the globe, all the while wearing their hometown on their sleeves and attempting to marry the traditional music of Newfoundland with their own pop explorations.

“Our music is of Newfoundland,” explains GBS's Sean McCann. “It would be impossible to do what we do if we were from anywhere else. Our songs come from the sea and the cliffs and the rocks and all the other natural beauties our country provides. Without her we simply couldn't exist.”

The lads of Canada's Great Big Sea got their start in the bars of St. John's, Newfoundland. The group has been together since 1993.

Sea change

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:52:06 GMT

Newfoundland rockers Great Big Sea create new music through the prism of the old

By Jefferson Robbins
World staff writer

Thursday, November 12, 2009

A lot of Great Big Sea’s music could sit comfortably beside U.S. pop and country ballads — but it’s much more likely to break down into a fiddle reel than a Fender solo.

The trio hailing from St. John’s, Newfoundland — Alan Doyle, Bob Hallett and Sean McCann — emerged from an isolated musical cauldron in 1993 to become a platinum-selling force in Canadian rock. The three musicians (along with fellow founder Darrell Power, who left the group in 2003) looked to the acoustic folk of their home island when crafting their accessible pop. Given where they grew up, they may have had little choice.

“Newfoundland’s a province of Canada, but it’s so distant from anything else, St. John’s is really kind of a city-state, for lack of a better word,” Hallett says by phone during a tour break in his hometown. “Even though it’s a small place, it has the trappings of a much bigger city. It developed its own arts and literary and music and drama scenes, and the tremendous energy of local, traditional music is one of the engines that drives this place.”

Newfoundland music draws together strands of Old World folk carried west by the Irish, English, Portuguese, French, Spanish and Basque fishermen, all of whom trawled for cod and hunted whales off the coasts of the island and neighboring Labrador. The island was claimed and colonized by England beginning in 1583, pushing the native Beothuk Indians to extinction to make room for planters. Great Big Sea’s music acknowledges several strands of the island’s heritage, from the yearning-for-home ballad “England” (from the 2008 CD “Fortune’s Favour”) to the ode to one of the last known Beothuk women “Demasduit Dream” (from “Turn,” 1999). And its instruments could have come over on any 18th-century fishing vessel: bouzouki, fiddle, tinwhistle, bodhran, you name it.

The recipe worked well, propelling four of Great Big Sea’s nine studio albums to million-selling status or better. Hallett and the rest of Great Big Sea — supported by longtime side players Kris MacFarlane and Murray Foster — arrive next week for a Performing Arts Center of Wenatchee performance. They’re now crafting a new CD.

Go! Magazine: A thing I notice about Great Big Sea’s music is that there’s a strong sense of history to it.

Bob Hallett: Local history is a subject of fascination to us. But also having grown up in a traditional milieu and having songs like that around us every day of our lives — when you write, you sort of tend to use those motifs and that language. We were always trying to create pop music using the language of traditional music. We were consciously trying to do something different. You start off trying to do it, and after a while, you can’t do anything else. That’s where we are now — we’ve absorbed traditional music so successfully that the line for us is very blurry now.

Go!: Tell me where you picked up on traditional songs and instruments.

Hallett: They were just in my house and in my family and my neighborhood. I didn’t have to go take a course on Sunday morning in the church basement. The stuff was all around us, all the time. It was very casual. Traditional music in Newfoundland wasn’t something, and even now isn’t something, that people felt was important. It was just the music, in the way that for most people in North America now, rock ’n’ roll is the music that they hear every day. ... When my parents had parties, people sang Elvis songs and hymns and Hank Williams songs, and a lot of what they sang was traditional music, but they wouldn’t necessarily have made that distinction. Obviously, I went out of my way to learn how to play these instruments, but to some degree, the spirit of it was by osmosis.

Go!: Would your folks have characterized themselves as musicians?

Hallett: Not at all, even though they both played and sang. Music was and is still very participatory in Newfoundland, and although people listen to CDs, it’s more important to know how to do it. How well you do it is less important than your ability to participate, in some sense, and they were both very enthusiastic participants. But I think that would’ve been the extent of it, as far as they were concerned. The fact that they knew something old, something important, something unusual — they were just playing songs at parties with the neighbors around Christmastime or whatever. There was no self-conscious preservationist agenda going on there, that’s for sure.

Go!: When you’re writing new music, how do you determine whether a song demands a traditional approach, or whether it’s a straightforward pop song?

Hallett: They often seem to find their own head. Myself and Sean and Alan will sit down with Kris and Murray, the bass and drum players in our band, and work on it a bit more, and they often sort of find their own way very quickly. We’ve learned over the years that songs are gonna go in the direction they’re gonna go, and our attempts to push them one way or pull them another have often failed. The ones that live very comfortably in the traditional world are obvious right from the very first time you sing them. Whether it’s the melody or the lyrics, I don’t know. It’s so often not a conscious decision on our part. They just kind of drifted that way.

Go!: Do your songs tend to come together on pen and paper, or in rehearsal?

Hallett: Rarely do we sort of jam together on stage, live. Our music is sort of heavily arranged, for lack of a better word. But when we’re playing them together, they very quickly assume their own form. Everyone brings their own instruments to the table, and chooses what and how they’re gonna play. So the result is often not necessarily what I as a writer wanted, or what I was thinking would happen, but the results are usually better for that kind of collective treatment. If people are doing something they want to do, they’re going to do it enthusiastically, and they’re gonna do it every night. Whereas if everybody’s just playing what I tell them to, or vice versa, then people will get bored. It doesn’t have the same value at all.

Go!: Does it ever go to the opposite extreme, where someone brings in a song idea and the collective determines that it’s not going to work?

Hallett: Oh, all the time. For the last two records, even the one we’re working on now, we must have 60 songs on the table. There’s no way we’re doing a quadruple album, no matter how attracted we are to our own ideas. Somewhere along the way, in the next two weeks, there’s gonna be a great winnowing. But bad ideas die quickly, but a good idea really never goes away, so the songs that were not just quite good enough or were lacking a certain something often come to the fore a record or two down the road. “Walk On the Moon,” on the “Fortune’s Favour” record, was quite an older song, really. It just didn’t find the right way to play itself, and when it did, it was like, “Bang on, this is great.”

Go!: Lyrically, there’s a segment of your songs that have a storytelling or narrative element. Is that an emphasis for you, or is that coming from elsewhere in the band?

Hallett: Personally, for me, that’s the songs I’m most interested in — songs that tell a story. A lot of the best traditional music is about stories. In Newfoundland historically, people didn’t write novels or plays or make great sculptures. The way they recorded the great events in their lives and in their world was in the form of songs. We sort of speak to that tradition and that idea, whenever we’re writing. We’re self-consciously trying to create songs that stand up to that legacy. The songs we’re playing now, in theory, should be just as good now as the ones that we learned that are 400 years old.

Newfoundland is physically isolated,” says Great Big Sea member Bob Hallett, right. “So we were basically just left alone to develop our own music.” The trio has sold millions of records by interpolating Newfoundland’s traditional music forms into modern rock hits. Great Big Sea — with Hallett alongside Sean McCann, left, and Alan Doyle — plays the Performing Arts Center of Wenatchee on Nov. 19.

Great Big Sea onstage, in longer-haired days. The band’s Wenatchee date comes during preparations for a new CD, following the 2008 album “Fortune’s Favour.”

Great Big Sea’s three main members, at right, are joined onstage and on record by Murray Foster, left, and Kris MacFarlane.

Thur Nov 19 CBC Radio 2 & online - Great Big Sea Paddy's day concert from NL

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:48:13 GMT

It'll be on Radio 2 in NL on Thur Nov 19 @ 7:30 pm Nl time - check times for the rest of Canada.

Wanta listen now or some other time or check out track listing: http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/cod/concerts/20090423bgsea

Swim in the fun of Great Big Sea

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:36:13 GMT

Swim in the fun of Great Big Sea

Spirited music: Band brings sounds of native Newfoundland

MOLLY GILMORE; For The Olympian | • Published November 16, 2009

For the members of Great Big Sea, a concert isn’t about performing for an audience. It’s about performing with an audience.

And the Newfoundland-based band will perform in Olympia on Wednesday night.

“People like the fact that we encourage them to participate and become part of the concert,” said Bob Hallett, a founding member of the band who plays an array of traditional instruments and sings.

“A lot of people these days are afraid to sing in public; they are afraid of the sound of their own voice,” he said. “We just encourage people to sing with us, and after a while they do. They become part of the concert; they’re singing and dancing and clapping, and it becomes as much theirs as it is ours. It’s much more fun to go and do something than it is to go and watch something.”

That kind of do-it-yourself spirit is how the band members learned traditional music to begin with.

“Up until very recently, traditional music was popular music in Newfoundland,” Hallett said. “Up until the ’60s, there was no outside TV or radio. Entertainment was something people did themselves rather than something that came from somewhere else.

“Learning to play music was like learning to throw a ball or make a cup of tea. It wasn’t a really formal process; it was more osmosis.”

Did he ever dream of becoming a professional musician, or did he learn music just as a matter of course?

Both.

“It seemed a bit of an absurd fantasy, like becoming an astronaut or a superhero,” Hallett said. “I played a bit of guitar, but I didn’t have a great electric guitar and big amps. I knew that playing the button accordion and the tin whistle was not going to be the route to rock stardom.

“It turned out it was, but that did not seem plausible when I was 14 years old.”

The band is Newfoundland-based in more ways than one. Growing up, Hallett and fellow band members Alan Doyle and Sean McCann were deeply steeped in the traditional music of their native land.

A reviewer for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review wrote of the band’s 2008 “Fortune’s Favour” that it is “tethered to the band’s musical past” but with “a great big (no pun) rock ’n’ roll feel.”

A Washington Post reviewer wrote: “Great Big Sea makes an explosively joyful noise that is bright and melodic, passionate and heartfelt.”

Hallett put it this way: “We’re trying to make popular music, but rather than building it on blues or jazz or hip-hop or whatever, we’re building it on the traditional music of Newfoundland.”

Great Big Sea

What: The band builds its music on the traditional sounds of its native Newfoundland.

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, 512 Washington St. S.E., Olympia

Tickets: $25.50-$37.50

Information: 360-753-8586

Great Big Sea brings folk mix to the Bing

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:42:41 GMT

Great Big Sea brings folk mix to the Bing

The Spokesman-Review

Isamu Jordan correspondent

Courtesy of Great Big Sea Great Big Sea lands at the Bing Crosby Theater on Tuesday.

Great Big Sea will always have a sound that is close to home – home for this Celtic folk-rock trio being the eastern tip of Canada.

Hailing from “the far east of the western world,” Great Big Sea plays music that’s tightly tied to its birthplace of St. John’s, on the island of Newfoundland.

Accompanied by instruments such as bouzouki, diatonic accordion and goatskin drums, the trio sings modernized versions of traditional songs sung by sailors from Portugal, Scotland and Ireland.

It’s melting-pot folk-pop with just as many love songs as songs about living on an island in the middle of nowhere.

So moving to New York or Los Angeles wouldn’t necessarily have been a wise move for Great Big Sea. Instead they toured relentlessly, serving up their cultural stew all over the world while maintaining their roots and singing songs about home.

In the early years, Great Big Sea toured as many as 300 days per year to establish its cult following and eventually caught fire in Canada and abroad. The multiplatinum selling band in its home country has been nominated for several Juno Awards, the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys.

Fifteen years and nine albums later, the group remains constantly on the road, led by the trio of Alan Doyle on vocals, guitar, mandolin and bouzouki; Sean McCann on vocals, bodhran, guitar and tin whistle; and Bob Hallett on vocals, bouzouki, fiddle, accordion, mandolin, concertina, bouzouki, whistles and bagpipes.

Mixing traditional folk songs and sea shanties, Great Big Sea comes to the Bing Crosby Theater on Tuesday, touring in support of its 2008 album, “Fortune’s Favor.”

Following the more traditionally based “The Hard and The Easy,” “Fortune’s Favor” is considered to be Great Big Sea’s experimental album, pushing boundaries by incorporating styles that recall the likes of Nickelback, The Clash, Ben Folds, Bob Marley, Johnny Cash and Neil Young.

Band members recently locked themselves away with a handful of songwriter friends for a writing binge and came up with 14 new songs in four days, according to their blog.

Great Big Sea also took some downtime from touring this summer so Doyle could finish his film debut in the forthcoming “Robin Hood,” directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett.

Sirius XM app.

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:57:57 GMT

For any OKPers who subscribe to SiruisXM Alan and Bob will be taking over Iceberg radio for an hour at 7PM tomorrow

Great Big Sea swells local performing arts center (pictures!)

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:18:57 GMT

Great Big Sea swells local performing arts center

Updated: 2009-10-06 17:55:42

The Joplin Independent

The musical group Great Big Sea gathers to open the second half of their performance in Joplin recently.

Great Big Sea surged like the ocean from which they take their name when they performed recently in the Taylor Performing Arts Center at Missouri Southern State University.

Dr. Chad Stebbins, director of the Institute of International Studies was excited to report that over 1,000 spectators filled the auditorium on October 5, 2009, to listen, clap and sway to the music of this Celtic rock group from Newfoundland. Clearly, the event was the most popular of the events scheduled for the Canada Semester, the theme designated for fall 2009 that includes a free series of events meant to acquaint students and the community with many aspects of a chosen country considered vital to the United States.

The band's cult following were quickly on their feet in what they considered the best position to embrace the music. With a backdrop of ever changing lights and visual images, the five musicians, playing several instruments that kept a grip hopping, pushed the boundaries of their art and music. The sounds reverberating throughout the theatre were as thunderous at times as waves crashing against the shore...helped out as time progressed by the sound man who upped the intensity.

The easy-going repartee of the group worked well with the introduction of several Irish folk tunes, although it appeared that the lyrics chosen were less bawdy than the musicians might have been accustomed to singing. After All, thoroughly mesmerized by what he was seeing and hearing, Jack, a wee tot, was in the front row with his mom and grandmom. He momentarily became part of the show when lead guitarist Alan Doyle lifted him high into the air.

Based on his bio "lusty songs of loose women and pirates" would best be attributed to Sean McCann into whose hands a bodhrán was placed at an early age. The Celtic frame drum made of stretched goatskin has become more popular because of its increased versatility, going beyond the creation of traditional Irish music.

Demonstrating that he could play several instruments well was Bob Hallett. Besides joining the group on the fiddle, Hallett soloed with a flute and paraded around the stage compressing and expanding the bellows of a small accordion.

The drummer was Kris MacFarlane. He also is a known multi-instrumentalist. Most importantly, his Scottish background adds a unique flavor to the beat.

Photographer Vince Rosati has captured the intensity of the musicians and their audience in the photos that follow. Click on a thumbnail for a larger view.

For those who couldn't 'Sea' them

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:27:16 GMT

For those who couldn't 'Sea' them

Nathan Carter; the Chartonline

Issue date: 10/9/09 Section: Life

In 1993 at Newfoundland's Memorial University, founding members Alan Doyle, Sean McCann and Bob Hallett formed Great Big Sea.

"We used to sing at the pubs and it was our part time job at the university," Hallett said. "We decided after many years of playing that we would try to do it full time. We'd start a band that would try to take very local, traditional music and try to bring that to a larger audience."

The traditional music of Newfoundland is a mixture of English, Irish, Scottish and French traditional music.

"The immigrants came to Newfoundland in the early 1500s and 1600s and there was no more immigration after that," Hallett said. "As a result the tradition was just allowed to live by itself and percolate.

"Because Newfoundland is so isolated, even now, the tradition just developed a lot of nuances and it took that English-Celtic-French beginning and turned it into something unique."

The band spent its time honing the sound at home and abroad.

"We went from playing songs that we all knew to creating a body of music together," Hallett said. "It took us a little while to define that, but we had a model. That was to make pop music."

Great Big Sea decided that it didn't want to be a retro band recreating the old sound, but rather use the historical sound as a springboard.

"We wanted to make our pop songs sound like traditional songs and our traditional songs sound like pop songs," Hallett said. "It took a few years for people to appreciate what we were doing, but in 1995 we signed our first record contract."

The band is now enjoying success across the North American continent.

Great Big Sea is currently finishing the last leg of the Fortunes Favor tour. The album was released more than a year ago, but a break has allowed the current tour to overlap the recording of its next album. On Oct. 5, Great Big Sea performed in the Taylor Auditorium. The overall crowd response was positive.

Entertainment Tonight/Robin Hood-starting Monday

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:08:53 GMT

Not sure if this is the right location for this thread, but saw a quick promo for ET's series on Robin Hood. As they were interviewing Russell Crowe, Alan was standing next to him playing a lute(maybe-looking more at Alan than the instrument-lol).

Do Not Miss . . .Great Big Sea

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:23:28 GMT

Do Not Miss . . .Great Big Sea

October 7, 2009

Jessica Mackin of "The Independent"

On Sunday, October 11 at 8 PM Great Big Sea will take the stage at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. The Celtic rock trio features members Bob Hallett, Alan Doyle and Sean McCann. The group plays original tunes and rock interpretations of traditional Newfoundland folk songs.

The trio has been unleashed to the American public and is ready to rock, yet remains loyal to their homeland. "Our music is of Newfoundland. It would be impossible to do what we do if we were from anywhere else. Our songs come from the sea and the cliffs and the rocks and all the other natural beauties our country provides. Without her we simply couldn't exist," says McCann. The Celtic music mixed with modern pop creates a crowd pleasing, boisterous show.

Get ready to shout and dance around as Great Big Sea provides the ultimate pub party on Sunday night.

Tickets range from $30-$50. Visit www.whbpac.org or call the box office 631-288-1500 for tickets.

Visit the band's website

www.greatbigsea.com

Great Big Sea will flood Performing Arts Center with fine blend of Canadian music

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:30:49 GMT

Great Big Sea will flood Performing Arts Center with fine blend of Canadian music

By Tom Isler of The East Hampton Press and The Southhampton Press

Oct 5, 09 1:37 PM

Bob Hallett stepped back from the mic. It was early September and the founding member of the eclectic band Great Big Sea was finishing up an open-air concert in Buffalo, New York, with his bandmates.

They were in the middle of playing an up-tempo drinking song Mr. Hallett had come up with more than 15 years ago, “The Old Black Rum,” but something made him stop singing after the first verse.

He didn’t need to bother with the second.

The lyrics floated up to the stage from the audience like fog rising on the Erie Canal. Five thousand people were belting out his words. “…’Cause the old black rum’s got a hold on me like a dog wrapped ’round my leg…”

It was a pinch-me moment for Mr. Hallett.

On stage were three guys from Newfoundland who mixed traditional folk songs and sea shanties from that isolated corner of Canada with their own original pop songs; who played instruments like the fiddle, the diatonic accordion and the goatskin drums; who had never recorded on a major U.S. label; who never got radio play in the States; who had not released a new album in more than a year; who were still going strong 16 years after starting out in dive bars in St. John’s; who were now performing in front of the largest crowd they’d ever attracted—an overwhelmingly American crowd, no less.

And the audience knew every word.

“You just have to step back and think back and philosophize about how you got here,” Mr. Hallett, 41, recalled during a recent telephone interview.

Great Big Sea will be flooding the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on October 11 at 8 p.m.

The success of Great Big Sea was not completely unexpected—at least from the band’s perspective—but it certainly was improbable. “We knew in our heads that there was a place for a band like this out on the world stage,” Mr. Hallett said. “The music was really good. But no one had successfully taken it out of Newfoundland, let alone Canada.”

Mr. Hallett, Alan Doyle and Sean McCann might not have been the most talented of musicians, but they were determined to spread their cultural heritage, and they were hungry for success. “We knew if we had the right recipe, people would like the dish,” Mr. Hallett said.

It was just a matter of convincing people to take a taste. So Great Big Sea tried to make it as palatable as possible.

The first step was to arrange traditional songs as pop songs. Then Great Big Sea brought the tunes to life with an infectious jollity, a full-tilt zest that inspires even the most skeptical listeners to hoist a frothy pint and search for the nearest mahogany bartop and a jig partner.

Mr. Hallett calls it the “Great Big Sea presentation.”

“You have to be good friends with your songs because you’re going to play them every night for the rest of your life,” he said, explaining the band’s enthusiasm for its music. “We’re not actors.”

(That’s not entirely true. Mr. Doyle will make his big-screen debut in the forthcoming “Robin Hood,” directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett.)

But Mr. Hallett simply means: the band isn’t faking it. They really are having a raucous good time.

For the record, Mr. Hallett says the band has never embraced the oft-applied label of “Celtic” to its music, although he understands that it helps the uninitiated grasp the general universe within which the band plays—one also populated by the likes of the Pogues, Gaelic Storm and Carbon Leaf. Irish, Scottish and bluegrass music all comes “from a similar place,” Mr. Hallett explained.

Over the years, the band has gained confidence and maturity and expanded its musical horizons.

On “The Hard and The Easy,” released in October 2005, the band delved deeper into the more esoteric and obscure traditional music of Newfoundland that it had shied away from in its early years when it was focused on attracting general audiences. And on its last release, “Fortune’s Favor,” which debuted in April 2008, the band deliberately embarked on a “sonic experiment” to move away from the sound upon which they built their name.

“We wanted to see what we could play and still be in the same band,” Mr. Hallett said.

The album has as many different sounds as the northern Atlantic has shades of blue and green—even if the accordions and tin whistles are consistently in the background. Listen straight through and you’ll hear echoes of Huey Lewis, Ben Folds, ’80s metal bands, Christian rock and the Muppets. You’ll hear the gruffness of Nickelback, the whispy folksiness of Neil Young and the tightly blended vocals of Phish at their most melodic and playful.

“The question for us is: is this as good or better than what we’ve done before?” Mr. Hallett explained. “The biggest pressure is, can we top ourselves?”

The one thing Mr. Hallett will not tamper with is the place he calls home. “The further we get from there, the less authentic we’ll be,” he said. “The music is so tied to the geography and the culture of Newfoundland, if we were to move away, an essential piece of what we are would be gone.”

Sure, maintaining that stance requires a lot more travel on his part to get to gigs. But he knew what he was getting into. “This is the life I’ve wanted since I was 8 years old.”

Great Big Sea will play at the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on Sunday, October 11, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $30, $40 or $50, available by calling the Arts Center box office at 288-1500, stopping in at the PAC at 76 Main Street in Westhampton Beach, or visiting www.whbpac.org.

Scotiabank Grey Cup Gala Concert presented by the Calgary Herald - Featuring Great Big Sea!

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:25:23 GMT

Scotiabank Grey Cup Gala Concert presented by the Calgary Herald - Featuring Great Big Sea!

WHERE	·	Pengrowth Saddledome
WHEN	·	Saturday, November 28, 2009
TIME	·	7:00pm

The Scotiabank Grey Cup Gala concert, the premier concert event of the Grey Cup weekend, will feature a cross-section of award winning Canadian artists from coast to coast leading a celebration of Canadian football! Sophie Milman, The Canadian Tenors, Divine Brown and George Canyon will take the stage before Canadian party rockers Great Big Sea headline the final bill of the concert. Tickets are only $39 - $59 (plus s/c). On sale now at www.ticketmaster.ca/2009greycupfestival

am770chqr.com

Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center Presents Great Big Sea

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:20:05 GMT

Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center Presents Great Big Sea

Celtic Rock Band

Updated: October 4, 2009, 9:10 am; hamptons.com

Westhampton Beach - Juno-nominated Celtic-rock band Great Big Sea (GBS) brings their solid original tunes and rock interpretations of traditional Newfoundland folk songs to the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center on Sunday, Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. in the Mollie Parnis Auditorium.

Featuring members Bob Hallet, Alan Doyle and Séan McCann, GBS plays with a refreshing lack of pretention and an endless supply of vigor. Known for their high-energy shows, this eclectic and charismatic band fuses traditional Celtic music with modern pop to create a crowd-pleasing, boisterous show. Their unique blend of instruments bellows sheer joy, incorporating elements of bouzouki, fiddle, banjo, accordion and whistles into their sound.

Great Big Sea's highly original live shows encourage audience members to shout and bounce along to their soulful ballads and rousing jigs. The band's lyrical storytelling songs like "A Boat Like Gideon Brown" and "The Night Pat Murphy Died" will place you right on a fishing boat of the coast of the North Atlantic.

Great Big Sea is currently touring in support of their most recent album, "Fortune's Favour." Consisting of 12 original songs produced by Canadian indie performer/producer Hawksley Workman, the album brings a new pop sensibility to their Celtic/folk/pop mix. "Fortune's Favour" sees GBS boldly embracing new sounds and new ideas, fearlessly pushing the boundaries of their own art and music. In their lifelong quest to marry the traditional music of Newfoundland with their own pop explorations, "Fortune's Favour" is a new benchmark.

For more information visit www.greatbigsea.com.

Tickets are $50, $40, and $30, and be purchased in three ways: On-Line at www.whbpac.org, calling the Box Office at 631-288-1500, or by visiting WHBPAC at 76 Main Street, Westhampton Beach. Tickets are available Wednesday through Sunday, from 12 noon to 6 p.m. and later on show nights.

The Newfoundland group makes a great big sound

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:19:47 GMT

The Newfoundland group makes a great big sound

by A.V. Staff of the Milwaukee Decider

While Great Big Sea’s songs boom with the desire to make earnest pop, the Newfoundland group also manages to weave in Celtic-Canadian sounds with convincing enthusiasm. All three main members sing, and all play both conventional rock instruments and traditional ones, including the bouzouki, fiddle, whistles, and bodhran (an Irish hand drum). The sea still pops up as a lyrical theme here and there on 2008’s Fortune’s Favour, even as the sound tilts a bit more toward the mainstream. “England” is either a traditional Newfoundland sea chantey or a very convincing attempt to recreate one, paying lusty tribute to those who “curse the cod with the fear of God.” The band plays tonight at Pabst Theater.

Great Big Sea, Suzuki at Mount Nemo concert

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 03:27:36 GMT

http://www.burlingtonpost.com/news/article/279792

Great Big Sea, Suzuki at Mount Nemo concert

By Graham Rockingham, Metroland West Media Group

Arts & Entertainment

Sep 18, 2009

When Sarah Harmer decided to fight a new quarry proposal near her childhood home on Mount Nemo in Burlington, she received a friendly warning from a local politician.

These quarry applications tend to stretch out, the local councillor advised.

Be prepared for a bureaucratic battle, maybe five years. Harmer heard the words but they didn't really sink in.

That was four years ago.

The popular folk-rock singer is now in it for the long haul, organizing her third annual benefit, Sunday, Sept. 27, to raise funds and awareness for the quarry fight.

As in past years, the concert will be held on a private farm on picturesque Mount Nemo. It’s less than a kilometre from the existing Nelson Aggregate quarry, which sits next to the spot where the company wants to dig a new one.

The concerts are well-heeled affairs with tickets this year costing $160 (about half can be claimed as a charitable tax deduction). They are finely catered under stylish white tents pitched next to horse pens and chicken coops.

Music fans get to rub elbows with music stars who otherwise perform in much larger venues. The first year it was Harmer and the Barenaked Ladies. Last year, Harmer, Bruce Cockburn, and Feist. This year it’s Great Big Sea, David Suzuki, Hamilton-born folkie Jeremy Fisher and, of course, the Sarah Harmer Band.

“Yeah, it has been four years,” sighs Harmer about the quarry fight. “But it’s going well.”

Harmer, 38, is on the phone from her current home north of Kingston, Ont.

She’s detailing the current state of Nelson Aggregate's application for its new pit. Her parents, Isabelle and Al, still live near the Mount Nemo quarry site. They can hear —sometimes feel — the dynamite blasts. Harmer knows the area well and visits it often.

Over the past four years, as the company application has wound its way through the approval process, Harmer has become an expert on water tables, wildlife and, most of all, government bureaucracy.

“It’s a huge application and the system is designed for all things to lead to a ‘yes,’” she says, aware that very few quarry applications have ever been rejected.

“They’re called ‘approval’ agencies, after all. The system is flawed in a major way and the (provincial) Environment Commissioner (Gord Miller) has explicitly said that in his annual report. Reform is necessary and it’s coming.”

Harmer and the environmental group she co-founded—-PERL (Protecting Escarpment Rural Land) — has an impressive array of support, including Mayor Cam Jackson and Burlington council.

PERL argues the proposed 51-hectare quarry poses a threat to several key water systems in the area.

The company contends there will be little harm from continuing to produce crushed stone for construction at a site in operation for more than 50 years. Nelson president Norm Elmhirst has said that high quality gravel is needed in the area and it makes sense to quarry rock close to where it’s used.

“We’re talking about water and the future of Burlington’s best remaining natural areas and the Niagara escarpment in general,” Harmer says. “It’s site specific of course, but it's also indicative of systemic problems within the industry and a changing understanding of resources and the fact that water is very, very vulnerable and crucial. And it’s put at grave risk in this application.”

Harmer admits her pop-star status has placed her in a privileged position.

“Most people don’t have careers like mine where you can really throw so much of your time into it and understand it,” she says.

Yet, the Mount Nemo struggle has undoubtedly had an effect on her musical career. Harmer hasn’t released an album since her critically acclaimed I’m a Mountain, which took much of its inspiration from the Niagara Escarpment.

That album led to an extended hiking trip along the Bruce Trail, playing concerts along the way. The hike turned into a Juno-winning DVD documentary.

That, too, was four years ago. Only recently has Harmer got back into the studio to record a new album. Whereas I’m A Mountain was folky and acoustic, Harmer’s next CD promises to be more electric.

She’s working with Toronto producer Gavin Brown, an old friend best known for his work with rock acts like Billy Talent and Three Days Grace.

“Gavin is coming my way and I’m going his way and we’re meeting somewhere in the middle,” she laughs. “It’s going to come out in the spring. I’m feeling good. I’m feeling like finally these songs have come together. Some of them I’ve written over a long period of time. Others came quite quickly. I’m feeling like I’m seeing what it’s shaping up to be.”

Sea the driving force for Canadian Rockers

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:17:18 GMT

Sea the driving force for Canadian Rockers

by Dan Craft at Pantagraph.com

Canadian pop-rockers Great Big Sea, playing the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts Friday night, were forged in the island isolation of their native Newfoundland.

Like the name says, Great Big Sea is of the sea -- literally and figuratively.

When the award-winning Canadian rockers roll into the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. Friday, they'll be bringing with them their native Newfoundland heritage, awash in brine, wind and surf.

"The far east of the Western world," is how they've described their far-flung island origins, where a person could walk for miles in utter isolation before meeting another islander.

The result of that stark upbringing makes for some lusty, soul-felt music, promises Alan Doyle, who handles what he calls the band's "stringy stuff: mandolins, guitars, bass, bouzouki, that kind of thing."

Band mates Bob Hallett and Sean McCann aren't as lucky: They have even more instruments to lug from concert stage to concert stage.

Says Doyle, "Bob's really crazy -- he plays something like 20 instruments," from fiddles to whistles to bagpipes and beyond.

Forged 15 years ago on the streets of St. John's, Newfoundland, Great Big Sea is one of Canada's premier rock bands, winners of 18 of the country's East Coast Music Awards.

In the past decade, incursions have been made stateside and beyond, originally via the interest of Sire Records' Seymour Stein (Madonna, Talking Heads, etc.). This weekend's BCPA show marks Great Big Sea's first-ever downstate Illinois concert, according to Doyle.

Even the rural stretches of the American Midwest seem like major population centers when compared to Great Big Sea's origins, he says.

"In Canada, which is so sparsely populated, it's not hard to earn national media attention," he says. "If you keep playing long enough, eventually they'll have to pay attention because they run out of options."

Stateside, Doyle continues, the situation is reversed: "In America, which is so much more densely populated, you have more options to perform, but you never earn national media attention simply because there are so many options."

Great Big Sea has managed to overcome that hurdle, however, earning a cult reputation through an eclectic sound that merges Newfoundland's 500-year-strong Irish, English and French history with everything from Bob Marley to Johnny Cash.

"We're lucky that we grew up in a place where we had music -- really good music --in our own back yard," says Doyle. "By the time I was a teen, there were a lot of bands in Newfoundland reinventing the Newfoundland folk music tradition."

Because of that upbringing, where old was being made new again, "the whole notion of taking a 200-year-old sea shanty and playing it like a band from California wasn't new to me -- there was already a history of reinterpreting our great music."

For example, he says, "my folks would have a party at home, and my uncle would be sitting in one corner singing a song by Elvis, while my grandfather was over in another singing a song he wrote back in the 1940s -- and they were all treated like good songs," Doyle recalls.

By the time the members of Great Big Sea crossed paths during the mid-'90s and began playing the rough-and-tumble bars of St. John's, the trio knew "we weren't the best musicians in town, we just wanted it more. We were driven by a bloody-minded need to succeed and we were rewarded for our bleeding," says Hallett.

That drive has continued to this day, with the band's origins forever at the forefront of their concerns.

"It would be impossible to do what we do if we were from anywhere else," says McCann. "Our songs come from the sea and the cliffs and the rocks and all the other natural beauties our country provides. Without her, we simply couldn't exist."

What: Great Big Sea

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday

Where: Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, 600 N. East St., Bloomington

Tickets: $21.80 to $33

Box office number: (866) 686-9541

Musical melting pot: Great Big Sea offers free show at Missouri Southern

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 17:10:31 GMT

Musical melting pot: Great Big Sea offers free show at Missouri Southern

By Scott Meeker of the Joplin Globe

Simply describing themselves as a “Canadian” band doesn’t really do it justice for the members of Great Big Sea.

“Very Canadian” isn’t quite it either.

“We are Canadian to the core,” said Sean McCann, a vocalist and guitarist for the group, which has built a sizable following for their folk-rock tunes that blend traditional sounds with a modern sensibility. “We wear Newfoundland on our sleeves.”

The band will offer a free show at 7 p.m. Monday in Taylor Performing Arts Center at Missouri Southern State University. The performance is offered as part of the university's Canada Semester.

Along with McCann, the group features founding members Alan Doyle, on vocals and guitar, and Bob Hallett, a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist who plays everything from the fiddle to whistles.

With more than 15 years together, the band has become something of an institution in their homeland, said McCann.

“We were all in university, at Memorial University in Newfoundland, and playing in clubs as solo acts to pay for our books and tuition … and beer,” he said. “We became aware of each other and would jam at each other’s shows. This was working for us and so we became an all-star kind of band.”

Traditional music has always been part of Great Big Sea’s repertoire. McCann said that music is deeply ingrained in those living on the island of Newfoundland.

“The songs came from sailors from Portugal, Scotland, Ireland and everywhere else,” he said. “It became a melting pot for folk songs.

“By the time our generation came along, the songs had all been honed. We learned them at what we call ‘kitchen parties,’ where we’d turn off the stereo and pass the guitar around. (Incorporating traditional music) has never been something we set out to do. It’s just something we always did.”

In their years together the band has made the journey from bar band to stadium and arena rockers, but they still have a soft spot for their roots.

“We were always good playing at the bars. An instant hit,” said McCann. “Even now, it’s hard for us to walk past a good bar. We love that culture a lot.

“To be able to bring what is, at heart, a pub show and play for 5,000 or 6,000 people is great.”

Every member of Great Big Sea has become something of a multi-instrumentalist, as evidenced by the wide variety of instrumentation showcased on their albums and in live shows.

“It’s kind of funny, though. None of us can read music,” McCann said. “Now it would be too late to learn how even if we wanted to.

“Bob can play a little bit of anything. If there’s a piano in the room, I’ll sit down and play it. Same with a banjo and a bouzouki. Once we have a melody in our heads we can figure it out.”

The band is currently preparing songs for their 10th album, which will be recorded in January. It will be the first album they have recorded outside of Newfoundland.

For a band whose influences tend to bleed together, they’re looking forward to recording in New Orleans.

“We like New Orleans. We’re very much influenced by whatever town we’re in, and there’s not a more musical city in America,” McCann said.

He said the album will be produced by Steve Berlin, a member of Los Lobos who has worked with bands such as R.E.M. and The Replacements.

During Great Big Sea’s energetic live shows, the set lists tend to change on a whim as the band interacts with the audience and goes with the moment.

That’s why a concert might range from rock numbers with shout-along choruses to sea shanties to an impromptu Van Halen cover.

“It might be a train wreck, but there’s the humor factor,” said McCann. “We’re fearless. We don’t really care.”

In the end, he said, it’s all about the audience having a good time.

“We’re very much audience-oriented,” said McCann. “If you haven’t been to one of our shows, people come to the theater, they sing with us, they interact with us and help make it a positive, high-energy show. (The crowd) always drowns us out. It’s that kind of environment that we love to create.”

The firefighter collection at the Buffalo Rocks the Harbour concert

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:22:29 GMT

When I went to the concert, there were a number of firemen collecting money for two fallen comrades. I did not know what they were talking about since I had just come back from vacation and had missed all the news. But in todays Hamilton Spectator there is a sorrowful story that explains their reason for collecting.

http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/644458

I am very glad that GBS made a point of helping them all out.

Robin Hood Storyline

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 20:58:57 GMT

Robin Hood Storyline

Date de Sortie: vendredi 14 mai 2010
Genre: Action

Réalisateur: Ridley Scott
Producteur: Brian Grazer, Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe
Scénario: Ethan Reiff, Cyrus Voris, Brian Helgeland, Tom Stoppard
Studio: Universal Pictures

enprimeur.ca

Résumé:

In 13th century England, Robin Hood (Russell Crowe) and his band of marauders confront corruption in a local village and lead an uprising against the crown that will forever alter the balance of world power. And whether thief or hero, one man from humble beginnings will become an eternal symbol of freedom for his people.

The untitled Robin Hood adventure chronicles the life of an expert archer, previously interested only in self-preservation, from his service in King Richard's army against the French. Upon Richard's death, Robin travels to Nottingham, a town suffering from the corruption of a despotic sheriff and crippling taxation, where he falls for the spirited widow Lady Marion (Cate Blanchett), a woman skeptical of the identity and motivations of this crusader from the forest. Hoping to earn the hand of Maid Marion and salvage the village, Robin assembles a gang whose lethal mercenary skills are matched only by its appetite for life. Together, they begin preying on the indulgent upper class to correct injustices under the sheriff.

With their country weakened from decades of war, embattled from the ineffective rule of the new king and vulnerable to insurgencies from within and threats from afar, Robin and his men heed a call to ever greater adventure. This unlikeliest of heroes and his allies set off to protect their country from slipping into bloody civil war and return glory to England once more.

En Vedette:

Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, William Hurt, Matthew Macfadyen, Mark Strong, Oscar Isaac, Léa Seydoux, Scott Grimes, Kevin Durand, Alan Doyle, Danny Huston, Max von Sydow

St Catharines - Performing live never gets old for Great Big Sea

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:47:56 GMT

I don't know how to post this article so you can read it, but here's the link.

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1768220

TWO More sleeps!!

GBS at Sault Ste.Marie

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:07:50 GMT

By Donna Hopper
SooToday.com
Saturday, September 26, 2009

The first thing Great Big Sea (GBS) frontman Alan Doyle said to the Essar Centre audience last night was: "Sault Ste. Marie! It's good to be back. It's been far too long."

From the crowd's reaction, SooToday.com got the impression that all 2,400 fans in attendance felt the same way.

On its feet for the entire show, the audience ate up every single delicious Celtic rock morsel the Newfoundlanders dished out.

And then some.

One fan wrote on GBS's Facebook fan page last night: "I just got home from the concert you played tonight in the Sault!! It was amazing and you're all right. It has been way too long since you've been here. You must come back!!"  

"Thanks for an amazing night!!!!" another commented. "We will never forget it!!!"

"Awesome show last night in the Sault!!! Best concert I have ever been to by far!!!!" said a third.

Much as their fans here seem to utterly adore them, the boys from GBS appear to adore the Sault right back.

Doyle sang the praises of our city's kindness and generosity, and reflected on the last time the band played here.

"Last time we played the Sault, we had a day off the next day," he said. "We needed a day to recover from that day off."

"I remember eating dinner at Arturo's and not much else after that," added Sean McCann.

McCann even dedicated England from the band's 2008 release, Fortune's Favour, to local radio personality, James Warner-Smith.

Others included on the evening's set list were Donkey Riding, Captain Kidd, Lukey, Run Runaway, Mari-Mac, Consequence Free, Penelope, When I am King, Ferryland Sealer, Ordinary Day, Excursion Around the Bay, and Concerning Charlie Horse, quite possibly the best song written about a dead horse, ever.

For two straight hours, the Essar Centre became the biggest, liveliest kitchen party you ever did see.

Something Doyle claims the Sault does like no other place on Earth.

Cheers to a hasty return, boys!

Great Big Sea is Great Big fun! (Great Pictures!)

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:48:32 GMT

Great Big Sea is Great Big fun!

Karen Johns for SooNews.ca
Friday, September 25, 2009, 11:10PM

The Essar Centre could have gotten away with not providing chairs for the audience tonight, because the cheering fans of Great Big Sea barely used them.

As soon as the band came out on stage, the mostly middle-aged crowd was on it's feet clapping, dancing and cheering.

It was a super-high energy show for the 2,400 and it never slowed down.
People love this band!

Great Big Sea is on tour across Canada and the United States. The band which hails from Newfoundland consists of:

Alan Doyle on Vocals, Guitar, Bouzouki

Bob Hallett on Vocals, Bouzouki, Fiddle, Banjo, Accordion, Whistles, Harmonica

Sean McCann Vocals, Guitar, Bodhran, Banjo

With Murray Foster on Bass and Vocals and Kris MacFarlane on Drums, Percussion, Guitar, Piano Accordion, Vocals

Their latest album is Fortunes Favor, the ninth album they have put out since the production of their first album “ Up in 1995.

Bob Hallet has said that their influences include Bob Marley, the Clash, Fergus O’Byrne, Ron Hynes, Johnny Cash, Donal Lunny and many others.

Whatever their influences, the East Coast musicians have certainly grabbed the interest delight of the people of Sault Ste. Marie.

The set list tonight included songs from Fortune’s Favor as well as some from the there past albums.

Donkey Riding
Captain Kidd
Love Me Tonight
The Night Pat Murphy Died
When I am King
Luke
England
Ferryland Sealer
Let it go
General
Beat the Drum
Penelope
Helmethead
Walk on the Moon
Consequence Free
Oh Yeah and the Old Black Rum

New route for Great Big Sea

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:36:47 GMT

New route for Great Big Sea

Posted By LUKE HENDRY THE INTELLIGENCER

September 25, 2009

Just when Great Big Sea's last album seemed to be on track, the Celtic folk-rock band let someone else derail their train.

On purpose.

The band will play a sold-out concert Sept. 28 at the Empire Theatre, part of the latest leg promoting last year's Fortune's Favour album.

On the phone from the band's native Newfoundland, founding member Bob Hallett said at one point he, Sean McCann and Alan Doyle were ready to record, but there was just one problem: it sounded like everything else they'd recorded.

"We had a bunch of stuff and it just felt very predictable," Hallett said. "Everybody knew what everybody was going to play."

The band brought in eclectic songwriter and producer Hawksley Workman -- a perhaps risky move given Great Big Sea's well-defined, popular sound. Yet Hallett said it was a gamble that worked.

"It was a conscious decision to force ourselves out of our own box," Hallett said. "The greater danger is trying to stay in the same place.

"People will not buy the same record twice. You just can't expect that inspiration to just strike."

The collaboration with Workman was a bit of a challenge for all involved, said Hallett, but a productive one.

"His creative enthusiasm was so infectious that we got caught up.

"We're really big personalities and Hawksley had been used to working with people where he was sort of the senior guy.

"It was more of a meeting of equals, even though we let him lead the train because we were interested in where it was going."

Hallett said he, McCann and Doyle have run the business end of the band in a very organized way and some of that organization had crept into their approach to recording.

"Hawksley was like, 'What is this committee? Let's go do something!'

"There was a lot of momentary inspiration."

The Fortune's Favour tour continues until Christmas, but the band still mixes in other hits.

"There are three songs -- Mari Mac, Ordinary Day and Consequence Free -- that refuse to leave the set. They've clung on despite all our efforts to dislodge 'em," he said with a laugh. "Occasionally we've tried but they keep hangin' on."

This month's concert will be Great Big Sea's first concert in Belleville since December 2007, when they recorded their Courage and Patience and Grit DVD at the Empire.

"We just really wanted to do something different," Hallett said of that session. "We wanted to stage it differently; we wanted to play it differently; and we wanted it to look differently.

"A lot of the nice older theatres are not very useful from a technical point of view," he said, explaining the size of some venues would have limited the amount of gear, etc. that could be used during the shoot.

"The theatre in Belleville had everything we're looking for. It had a great crowd and it was completely accessible, too.

"We wanted that DVD to have very much an audience feel.

"We didn't want it to be like MuchMusic where there's a guy with a camera chasing you around the stage.

"We looked at a dozen theatres in southern Ontario and it really stood out."

Hallett said the next album could be released in early spring, but it's unclear what approach the band will take. Whatever it is, though, it'll be a band decision.

"In terms of what labels expect from bands, Great Big Sea does not fit any of their templates. We've kind of ignored each other for 10 years and it seems to work.

"I don't think we can get much more louder and more bombastic than Fortune's Favour, I think we'll find a sort of middle ground where everyone's happy."

The thrill of the road

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:30:47 GMT

The thrill of the road

CENTRE FOR THE ARTS: 2009-2010 season gets underway

Posted By KRISTINE MASON, SPECIAL TO THE STANDARD (St. Catherines)

September 25, 2009

After more than 15 years performing, some bands might decide to take a well-deserved break from touring, or at least start performing a weekly hometown gig.

That sounds a bit boring to Great Big Sea's Alan Doyle.

"I remember getting to play in concerts when I was 14 or 15 with my father and my uncle's band, I was always really excited, and I'm still really excited," said Doyle from his home in St. John's, N. L.

His own lust for life, coupled with the enthusiasm of fellow band members Sean McCann and Bob Hallett, is leading Great Big Sea on a North American tour in honour of their ninth album, Fortune's Favour, which was released June 24.

The tour includes a sold-out show on Sept. 30 at Brock University's Sean O'Sullivan Theatre, which opens the Centre for the Arts season.

"We had lots of good nights there (in Niagara), and a few foolish ones, playing the Event in the Tent and the New Year's Eve bash," said Doyle.

"I remember one particular New Year's Eve involved an altercation with a light display, but that's a story for another time."

Although their stop in Niagara provides a smaller venue than many of the arenas and sports centres they will be visiting, the audience can still anticipate Great Big Sea to put on its best.

"It's going to be excellent, jutting back and forth between big shows and smaller shows," said Doyle. "The population is so spread out, that's just the way this country is.

"All I want is for the room to be full, and whether that's 10,000 or 40, that's fine with me."

The band's performing roots nurtured in Newfoundland have prepared them for rethinking the show every night of the tour. "One of the things that has proven to be a great reward is having an internship at the pubs in Atlantic Canada," he said. "Sometimes you'd start at 8 p. m. and play until 2 a. m. and all sorts of people come in. It's just another arrow in your quiver to have that kind of experience."

When creating Fortune's Favour, scheduling between Great Big Sea and indieartist Hawksley Workman finally worked out to allow a collaboration. Workman is a Juno award-winning artist who originally hails from the Muskoka area.

"We've always been big fans of him, we love how he exaggerates music. It's sort of cabaret style, he taught us something about music," said Doyle.

"It was a great learning experience and there was certainly a lot of trust involved."

While Workman's style may seem an unlikely match for a band that built its reputation on ballads and traditional East Coast songs, the band was ready for the challenge.

"We've done it our way a lot of times, we really wanted to let someone else come in and teach us," he said. "That's all you want when you're a band, is to grow and do new stuff. The final product is an album that may be a bit more rock 'n' roll."

In its 15 years, Great Big Sea has toured more than 16 countries and visited every state except two. Although this isn't their first time travelling across Canada, the thrill of the road still calls to band members.

"It's so much work to get somewhere, especially when you live in Newfoundland. You better love it and if that 1 1 /2-or two-hour show doesn't do it for you, then you shouldn't be doing it," said Doyle.

"Other stuff has gotten hard -- leaving your three-year-old gets hard, being physically fit enough to perform gets hard, but it's not really hard compared to all the jobs my father had. Writing and performing, that's the fun stuff."

The tour is tightly packed with the band performing in Belleville the night before the Brock gig and Milwaukee the day after. But band members still plan to find some time to spend in Niagara.

"We pretty much always tour on a bus, and we'll probably get into the area around 8 or 9 a. m.," said Doyle.

"Unless we have other commitments, myself and Sean usually run. We get to see towns in a way you usually don't. Niagara is so beautiful, I'm sure we'll click out a couple kilometres while we're there."

Although the tour promotes the band's latest album, those with tickets for the show are sure to hear some of their old favourites.

"I've always liked singing Excursion Around the Bay," said Doyle. "I 've always been charmed by how simple it is -- maybe that says too much about me."

Heeb Storytelling: Toronto, ON (Murray Foster)

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 23:25:49 GMT

Heeb Storytelling: Toronto, ON

September 22, 2009 (Heeb Magazine.com)

Heeb Storytelling made its first appearance in Toronto at the Drake Hotel with 7-minute Jewish stories from local personalities Mike Adler (journalist, Inside Toronto), Kathryn Borel (writer, Corked), Jesse Brown (humorist, radio host, TVO), Nick Flanagan (comic), Murray Foster (musician, Moxy Fruvous and Great Big Sea) and Josh Saltzman (comic). The evening was hosted by Toronto comedian Aaron Berg,