Out and About in Toronto

We talked about traveling in Canada and swapped stories about all the great places we had been. I don’t know what I was thinking. Perhaps that she would write about leisurely drives through pastoral Canadian landscapes, or antique shops, or maple syrup. But no. Kelly’s into the bright lights and culture of the big city. Big time. She’s out, like, every night! So until I can rein her in, here are a couple of her latest adventures…

I was thrilled to watch kd lang as dusk descended in David Pecaut square in Toronto last week. The once cow-punk grrl from the prairies and now, at 48, a crooner of extraordinary range and style, dazzled during the city’s Luminato Festival, Toronto’s annual artistically-inspired week of concerts, theatre and art happenings.

In front of an adoring crowd Lang held nothing back, entertaining with a mix of humor, appreciation of her fans and full-on vocal power. At one point, before a song in which she plays banjo, she warned the audience not to be concerned at how much they would be drawn to the stage for the next song – it happens all the time! As a newcomer to kd lang‘s music, I was blown away by her powerful voice, enchanting melodic range and charismatic stage presence.

But even as someone who has never really paid much heed to kd and her music, I was surprised by the amount of songs I did know! Now, armed with an arsenal of tunes to download (Read: ‘Summer Fling‘ and ‘Constant Cravings‘), I have difficulty expressing my wonderment watching (and discreetly videotaping) her chilling rendition of Leonard Cohen‘s ‘Hallelujah‘. Many strong responses were evoked by her emotional delivery of Cohen’s haunting classic and I found myself watching and re-watching the video. kd continued the Canadian leg of the tour the next night in London, Ontario and will be performing sets in Montreal and Ottawa later this month.

Editor’s note: kd lang hails from Consort, Alberta. It’s a long way from L.A. where she lives now.

 

Wow! What an event in downtown Toronto! The Much Music Video Awards were held on June 19th, 2011 at the City TV “legendary home of Much Music” building, and surprisingly enough, I got a ticket in!!

Amazingly I managed to get right into the back stage pre-party where we walked in and immediately spotted The Black Keys . I am 99.9% certain that’s who it was, though I must admit I am not terribly ‘down’ with what the bands kids are listening to look like in person. They were sprawled across a semi-circle white leather couch next to the sushi bar and it was my date that advised me not to lean over (as I was in the process of doing, to ask where the open-bar was, to get a glass of wine) as I could clearly see they were enjoying the cold white themselves. We spent some time in this pre-party room gazing out at all the kids on Queen Street West, who were frantically trying to peer in across the red carpet.

While strolling through our exit maze to leave the backstage area, my date decided to grab my hand and casually walk up the back steps onto the backstage of the MMVAs. In a classic situation of “don’t ask permission just beg forgiveness”, coupled with a dash of “if you look like you should be there no one will stop you”, I found myself backstage. Literally. So moments later we were standing behind the huge light screen that screaming fans were facing, with Justin Bieber steps away, calling down to guys standing right next to us about who was on his shirt (from what I could tell it was a pic of his gf Selena Gomez). A great hooting and hollering erupted as we all watched Biebs saunter onto the stage. All we could hear backstage was the waving swell of screaming fans (they had lined up for days), the octaves rising and dissipating as various celebs entered and exited.

After that we waited around backstage, (me waiting for someone to tell us to scram, my date using Lady Gaga’s stage prop as a stepping stool) when Justin swished by us again with gf on arm to their next appointed position. In the meantime we spotted Snoop Dogg and Fefe Dobson heading onto stage in a red and white classic car of some sort and I grabbed a pic of someone clearly important (as I wasn’t the only one taking her pic) can anyone help out on this?