Let it Be... Pictures!!!

It's almost over so I though... time for more pictures! There's only two, but I think they're pretty good.

I very cool picture of the whole amphitheatre at Hawrelak Park at night.

3 of the "Beatles" in their new costumes.

It's been a very fun night for everyone here listening I think and it was very interesting to hear a variety of music by probably one of the worlds best and most famous bands, the Beatles.
Now it's getting too dark to see my keyboard, so I guess that's a sign that I'm done blogging for the night. I hope you enjoyed my live blog posts from Symphony Under the Sky at Hawrelak Park with Classical Mystery Tour - A Tribute to the Beatles.

Beatles Riddles

"No concert like this would be complete without this song: I am the Walrus" says "Paul McCartney".
What do you think this means?:

"I am the egg man
I am the egg man
I am the egg man
I am the walrus
Coo-coo cu-chu"

Perhaps something to do with an egg eating walrus?
What ever it is, it's getting my friend Ade to play air-guitar.

Now another riddle, what do you think this means?:

"O bla di
O bla da
Life goes on - ra!"

Oh these Beatles lyrics, what are they really saying?

And now starts the "classic" that everyone knows, Yellow Submarine. I don't need to write these lyrics down.

Intermission, and Some Pictures``

It's intermission so time for another blog post! This time it includes some pictures of the show so far.


The whole band with the Symphony Orchestra playing behind them.

Three of the "Beatles" on stage.

One of the "Beatles" playing piano.

Now I got to go eat some Mini Donuts.
YUM.

All You Need is Love

I wasn't alive in the '60s and I definitely am not 60, but so far the only songs I've actually heard before are from their CD Magical Mystery Tour. I like the Beatles but I'm not a huge Beatles fanatic. But still, it was nice to hear a bunch of their songs from way back when. And now I can say that I've been to a Beatles concert (sort of, not really).
The setting here at the park is really nice too. Listening to the Beatles songs accompanied by a full Symphony Orchestra in the evening, chilly but nice.

Your Car is Running With Your Lights On

Those were the first words that we heard from the stage before the Symphony Orchestra began to play the "Classical Mystery Tour - A Tribute to the Beatles."
This concert will feature the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra with Jim Owen (playing John Lennon), Tony Kishman (playing Paul McCartney), Thomas Teeley (playing George Harrison) and Chris Camilleri (playing Ringo Star) playing as the Beatles.
Stay tuned for more updates from Hawrelak Park at Symphony Under the Sky.

(You will be able to read all updates later under the list: Symphony Under the Sky 2008 Live Blog on the right-hand side column.)

Tune in for "Live Blog" Tonight

The Symphony Under the Sky will be held tonight in Hawrelak Park. It will feature many exciting performances such as a Beatles Tribute. Someone from Symphony Under the Sky has asked me to "live blog" from the performance. So I will be bringing my laptop there and be blogging as I listen and watch. So tune in at 7:00 tonight for live blogs from the Beatles Tribute show at Hawrelak Park.

On an unrelated note, I read this article in the Journal this morning: Legal bid to stop CERN atom smasher from 'destroying the world'

Now my bad haircut doesn't seem soooo bad.

Special Release!!!

Owen Pallett from the Toronto band Final Fantasy is putting out some new songs, except he wants his songs to be exclusive to different blogs. He's asked me to post some of those songs onto this blog!

Here is the song, The Butcher by Final Fantasy (it may take a couple minutes, but it's worth it!!!):

http://isaac.wurmann.googlepages.com/03_The_Butcher.mp3

You will also be able to listen to the song FOREVER if you click the link on the right hand side of this page.

If you like this song and you want to check out other songs by Final Fantasy, go to: http://www.finalfantasyeternal.com/

"I'm a Pessimistic, Dark Thinking Kind of Person"

Try to guess who might describe themselves as that. You probably wouldn't guess Canadian singer-songwriter Hawksley Workman, at least I wouldn't. But for me, he always defies my expectations, and this is yet another example of that.
Growing up in a small town, beginning to play music was easy. "As soon as you woke up, music was there until you went to sleep" he explains, and calls his childhood idyllic. This has something to do with growing up in mid-northern rural Ontario without televisions, only their imaginations.
The night before, Hawksley Workman gave everyone on the folk fest hill a great concert. It was his "rock cover show" where he played covers of his favourite rock 'n roll songs such as Record Body Count by the Rheostatics, mixed with his music. "We thought, let's just have fun, it's kind of like when we'd play in our basement along with Led Zeppelin records."
Hawksley Workman can also be known as one of the many Canadian artists who have lived in Paris, along with Buck 65 and Wendy McNeil. " They [the French] are a lot like Americans, except they're in Europe and I think for some people, Paris is just like a safer America" he explains. "You gotta go there" he says.
Off his new CD "Between the Beautifuls" has a song called The City's a Drag which he also played at his concert the night before. "I feel that a lot of my songs are about the way society's interact with themselves it just doesn't feel good to me. When I wrote The City's a Drag, there's times when I would land in Toronto and I would get parking tickets and people would be breaking into my apartment and you get an overdose of the city and you just feel like, I hate this! Please let me go to where life is peaceful."
At a session at the Edmonton Folk Fest, Hawksley Workman said an interesting thing, he said that sometimes listening to the radio just makes him feel sick. And that was the inspiration to his song Goodbye to the Radio. "If you listen to CBC like I do, you get the news spoon fed to you every hour, like about the poor kid who was murdered on the bus in Winnipeg and the body count in Afghanistan and Iraq and it just like, I think we need sometimes to embrace the goodness of humanity."
I was not able to put the whole interview on here but if you have a specific questions that you knew I asked Hawksley Workman, just please ask me about it.
Stay tuned for some highlights of the interview on the next ZeitCast.

"Canada, Please Invade America"

Those were the words of Folk Fest performer Jim White at his concert on Sunday. He said that because he thinks that Canada is really great and if we invaded America then they would be more like us. Oh, and we have Health Care.
Many great artists were at the Edmonton Folk Festival last weekend, including Jim White. Others were Brett Dennen, Michael Franti, Luke Doucet, Broken Social Scene and Hawksley Workman.
I am very excited to say that I was able to interview four of those great artists last weekend with my media pass.
I will be posting portions of the interviews on my blog over the next week but will also be showing highlights on the August ZeitCast.
I have already posted my interview with Luke Doucet but stay tuned to read interviews with Hawksley Workman, Brendan Canning (Broken Social Scene) and and exclusive interview with Michael Franti.

Chances are you are Playing Music because you Love it or You’re Not Good at Anything Else

Hundreds of artists come to the Edmonton Folk Fest every year. Some years you don’t really know the people who are performing but you leave with a new favourite, that’s what you will always be guaranteed, to leave with a new favourite.
I had heard of Luke Doucet before and had listened to a bit of his music, but I had never heard a lot of his music, until yesterday at a workshop. Just before the workshop I got a call from the Edmonton Folk Fest Media Tent to say that right after the workshop, I would be interviewing Luke Doucet. I spent the whole workshop preparing questions for him, until finally at 9:00 pm, the interview actually happened.

And the result was an interesting interview and a lot of fun!
At the festival he was performing with his band the White Falcon and with his wife Melissa McLelland, though most of his albums are technically solo albums, in that it’s his name on the cover and he writes all the music.
Luke Doucet himself though is all from over the place, he’s lived everywhere. He grew up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but after 12 years there he moved to Vancouver, after that he’s lived in Nashville, Toronto, Halifax and Hamilton. After living in so many cities, they each must have a different influence on an artist’s music. “In cities where there’s a large music industry like Toronto or Los Angeles or New York, it’s very easy for people to play music in those places for the wrong reason because they want to be stars and they see stars. Where as if you were living in Edmonton or Hamilton, chances are you are playing music because you love it or you’re not good at anything else” explains Luke.
For those of you who are familiar with the Weakerthans, you will know that they are also from Winnipeg. They have a song called One Great City, where they sing in the chorus: “I hate Winnipeg.”
“It’s difficult not to hate that city sometimes but it’s also difficult not to love it” says Luke Doucet in response to the Weakerthans quote. He explains that Winnipeg is in the middle of nowhere, and it’s hard to find work and, of course, that it’s really cold.
Luke Doucet’s music has influences from all over the place, so it’s really hard to categorize it. But categorizing music might be a bad thing, says Luke, “You know back in the day, people said rock ‘n roll was a combination of country and blues and folk, therefore I guess by an old definition, that’s what [my music] would be. But if you ask people what rock music is today, they don’t think of country, blues and folk.”
For more of the interview, please listen to a ZeitCast edition that will be coming out over the next few months.