“Perceptions,” by Gerry Warner

Op-Ed Commentary

Wow!

I don’t know if you were one of the 600 or so at the Randy Bachman “Every Song Tells a Story” concert at the Key City Theatre March 17 but if you were I don’t need to tell you that you enjoyed one hell of a rockin’ show.

Randy and his famous Stratocaster guitar were in fine form as he treated the audience to a virtual kaleidoscope of 1960 and ‘70 hits that made him and Burton Cummings famous with the Guess Who and later with the Bachman-Turner Overdrive aka “BTO.”

Randy also did a medley of tunes by his musical mentor, George Harrison. What more could you ask?

And yes, it was a bit of a gray-haired crowd, but they were the generation that gave the world The Beatles, Bob Dylan, the Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd and all of those high decibel bands that made the 1960s one of the greatest eras in musical history.

And to think that right here in little ol’ Cranbrook we’ve been treated to live performances of iconic bands like these the past few months in what amounts to an embarrassment of rock and roll riches.

And there’s more to come!

Canada’s best blues man Colin James will be in town this weekend and in recent months we’ve been treated to the likes of the Barenaked Ladies, the Downchild Blues Band and Burton Cummings, who brought the house down and in my humble opinion is the best male voice in Canadian rock and roll history.

(Editor’s note: Big Four metal legends Anthrax and Testament are also coming to town on Friday, May 18.)

If you go back several years, we’ve had Kenny Rogers, Eric Burdon and The Animals, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, George Jones and BB King. I saw every one of those shows and frankly I’m grateful that I can live in a small town in the shadow of the Rockies and enjoy world-class entertainment like this.

And I believe some credit should be given. First of all, there’s local impresario F.J. Hurtak of the Kootenay Concert Connection, who used to own the local radio station and since selling it struck out on his own as a concert promoter and with his many contacts has been booking great shows one after another.

Plaudits also to Gavin Olstead, managing director of the Key City Theatre and Paul Heywood, former manager at Key City and now marketing manager at Western Financial Place. They all deserve credit as does the City of Cranbrook, which with the generous help of local taxpayers, built the Rec Plex, a venue big enough to host a Nobel Prize winner and the greatest folk-rock entertainer in history, the incomparable Bob Dylan, who sold the cavernous edifice out, something sadly the Kootenay ICE no longer do despite trying their best. (Maybe next year.)

Let me give you an idea of what it means to bring in entertainers the likes of Dylan, Bachman, BB King and others.

I personally bought eight tickets for the Dylan concert and sold them to friends as far away as Vancouver and Prince George, who all came to town and spent money here in local restaurants and motels because my small bungalow wasn’t big enough to put them all up.

And when I was standing in line buying those tickets I was standing beside a Lethbridge woman who was doing the same for her friends. That’s business! And it’s big business for our small town and its taxpayers, who will be paying the $3 million or more annual deficit of the Rec Plex for years to come.

So as Randy Bachman says, “Every Song Tells a Story” and so does every big event booked into the Rec Plex or the Key City Theatre. A story of money returned on investment and world class entertainment that is making Cranbrook the Entertainment Capital of the Kootenays and benefiting us all.

– Gerry Warner is a retired journalist and life-long fan of Dylan. The Guess Who, BTO and 1960s rock and roll

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