Blue Rodeo perform impromptu gigs in Toronto

[Kanada Kev]

Damn, wish i had known about these. Anyone else catch one of the mini-gigs?

http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2007/09/24/4521809-cp.html

Blue Rodeo perform impromptu gigs

By Victoria Ahearn, THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO - Veteran country rock band Blue Rodeo staged a series of surprise gigs in the city's downtown Monday, much to the delight of busy commuters who stopped to enjoy the music.

"This makes my Monday!" Christine Chang exclaimed outside bustling Union Station as she realized she was being serenaded not by local buskers, but by perennial favourites Jim Cuddy, Greg Keelor, Bazil Donovan, Glenn Milchem, Bob Egan and Bob Packwood.

Chang was due on a conference call, but planned on being late.

"I can still stop to smell the roses," she sighed as the band played beside a bus shelter in the sun.

The Toronto-based chart-toppers began their secret, day-long mini concert series at Union Station at 8:30 a.m. ET and moved on to several locations virtually non-stop in an effort to promote their new album, "Small Miracles," in stores Tuesday.

Travelling in a van, most of them in jeans, the six musicians needed just a couple of minutes at each stop to set up their minimal equipment - a snare drum, keyboard, two guitars and a pedal steel guitar.

They played about five songs at each gig, blending old hits with new tracks from "Small Miracles." After their sets they chatted with and gave hugs to fans, posed for pictures and signed autographs.

"There used to be an era where you did stunts to promote your record, you know, you'd get on a ship and sail, or get on a mechanical bull - anyway, it's just our way of sort of announcing that we have a record out and it seemed like a fun way to do it," said Cuddy, who allowed a 3 1/2-year-old girl to pluck his guitar at their second stop, the busy corner of Yonge and Dundas.

The band was to stop at least six different locations, with the Air Canada Centre being the last.

Toronto resident and longtime Blue Rodeo fan Christian Fletcher found out about the secret gigs in advance from the band's website and planned on going to all of them.

"I've seen them in a lot of different venues - I've seen them in large venues and small venues - and this is by far the most close up I've actually been to seeing them," he said.

Over 100 people watched their third gig in the atrium of Princess Margaret Hospital, where medical staff and patients, some of them in wheelchairs with IV drips, sang along to their hit, "Five Days in May."

That was the most memorable stop for Keelor.

"The nurse who looked after my dad when he was in intensive care up in North York was there too, and so that was pretty sweet," he said in an interview at their fourth stop, First Canadian Place, where some fans jokingly tossed coins onto the stage, pretending they were buskers.

Brent Hart of Oshawa, Ont., is being treated for leukemia at the hospital and said Blue Rodeo's planned appearance gave him the strength to put on shoes for the first time in 34 days.

"They talk about positive things to influence cancer treatment - I can't think of anything better than something like this," he said sitting in his wheelchair before meeting the band members and telling them, "I feel alive again for the first time. You just can't believe how much this meant to me."

"Small Miracles" is Blue Rodeo's 11th studio album, which they just finished recording in August.

Keelor said he wrote some of the tracks last December while nursing a dog named Mojo who was suffering from cancer. The dog has since died but his picture is in the centrefold artwork in the "Small Miracles" CD.

"He needed constant care and so over the Christmas holidays I just sort of removed myself from all the of the Christmas stuff and hung out with him and it was a very sort of beautiful Christmas - poignant," he said.

"So I just sat there with old Mojo and wrote songs."

Once they got into the studio this summer, Cuddy said the recording process was smooth.

"The songs have been fun to play so far, we played them over the summer and I think things are pretty good," he said.

"I think now that we've done the routine of solo (records) and back together enough times that it was pretty seamless and we worked pretty hard and it was actually a pretty positive experience."