So when was the last time you went to Vancouver’s Yale Hotel? Well if you’re a boomer and you weren’t going to the Commodore to dance to the local house band or to a Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd concert, then you might have been sitting beside me at The Yale groovin’ to the likes of Long John Baldry or Jim Byrnes.
You might have found yourself chillin’ with some pretty interesting people, but there was a sense of safety, and even though we might not have known it then, music was definitely history in the making.
Not much has changed in the past 30 or 40 years –– The Yale is still a great place to go. It has good service. The crowd is a motley mix of young to old, a bit weathered, maybe too much bling, but even three-piece suits can feel like it’s home, skeleton belt buckles can still be found under a few bellies, and there’s a few with sensible shoes.
A lot of tales have come and gone in the last three-to-four decades, but within those historical walls are so many stories and so many music legends who have come and gone.
Our good luck brought us to The Yale one Sunday afternoon when we walked into an explosion of people, laughing and dancing, so I stretched my neck through the crowd to find a band on stage with a blues groove like nothing I’d heard for a very long while. They were completely new and completely different and yet stayed true to “da blues.”
So who was the band?
“Brickhouse,” someone said with pride. “They’re Canadian, eh.”
From my perspective, they were a really great, very tight band who got me up shaking my bootie with the best of them.
We at the Rarearth Music Fest are so proud to say that together with our amazing mix of all the musical guests we’ve invited to our beautiful Silver Star Mountain, Brickhouse will headline on Saturday, July 23.
They are just one of the bands that will bring with them the heart and soul of not only their beloved genre, but histories from around the world that make each band so unique unto themselves.
Our pride and joy, Jodi Pederson will perform her folk and rock pop with feeling. Kath and The Tomkats have prepared a mix of slow blues to rockin’ classics. Skyla J and The Vibes will perform with a bit of soul, jazz and a funk groove as well as the Okanagan’s favourite blues man, Poppa Dawg.
Vernon’s Redfish, with their intoxicating blend of soulful, hard-edged rock, will hit the stage before Nelson’s Wassabi Duo, with special guest percussionist/drummer Bobby Bovenzi, playing pop, rock, hip-hop, roots, reggae, funk and everything in between.
There will be some funk and some soul with Space Monkey, and Steve Kozak’s rockin’ west coast all-stars will prepare the stage for two-time Juno Award winner Greg Sczebel.
Las Vegas entertainer David “The Saxman” Brown, whose unique overblow technique on the sax promises to get you up dancing and ready for the Aussies, the Mason Rack Band whose sound will leave you in awe of a voice that takes you down into the Mississippi bayou.
The Sunday, July 24 headliner, Delhi to Dublin, will provide a unique blend of break-beat, Celtic and electronics where India meets Ireland with upbeat, impossible to sit down music.
But that’s not all. There’s a full-on jam band at The Saloon as well as an acoustic jam at the Bulldog pub after the festival on the Saturday night.
Rarearth promises you memory making history at the Silver Star Mountain Resort from the moment you arrive to the moment you say good-bye to us.
Tickets are available at Ticket Seller, 250-549-SHOW (7569), the Bean Scene, and online at http://www.rarearthmusic.com. For more information call 250-938-2231.
–– Kath Raeber is the founder and artistic director of the Rarearth Music Festival.
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