Great Canadian Music, eh

I've never been to Canada. Would like to some day - Vancouver, Toronto, maybe even Montreal. The closest I've been to the border is Detroit. I don't know a lot about Canada, but I do know they've given us the great sport of hockey and some great music. Two of my long-time favorites bands - Rush and Blue Rodeo - are both from the great white north.

Several weeks ago, I stumbled across the Addicted to Vinyl blog. A September 2008 entry referenced a live January 2008 Blue Rodeo show on the CBC's Concerts on Demand website. It is indeed a great show.

If you are a Blue Rodeo fan - or at least open minded enough to sample some great new music if you aren't currently a fan, listen for yourself on-line.

In looking through their archives of other shows, I found a few more.

2008-04-03 - Corb Lund & The Hurtin' Albertans - Edmonton Alberta
2008-07-09 - Kathleeen Edwards - Bluesfest, Ottawa Ontario
2008-08-04 - Sarah McLachlan - Victoria BC
2008-05-01 - Tommy Emmanuel - Montreal Quebec
(Tommy is Australian not Canadian - but he is an incredible guitar player & is not to be missed)

I believe one of my 2009 resolutions will be to keep a close eye on the calendar for upcoming shows to catch them as they air vs. trying to find good ones at the end of the year.

Despite watching my Nashville Predators lose their second consecutive game to a western Canadian team - a weak performance against Vancouver on Thursday and a demoralizing loss today to the Calgary Flames from the stick of Todd Bertuzzi with 23 seconds to go - I decided to take the high road, twist the lid of a LaBatt Blue, and share the links to these great shows with you.

TMC