What’s Up

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This article was published 10/08/2017 (3143 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Susto

Charleston-based band Susto (pronounced “soos-toh”) were in town just a few months ago opening up for folk-rock group the Lumineers at Bell MTS Place and now they’re back on their own headlining tour and will make a stop at the Park Theatre on Aug. 12.

The five-piece is on the road in support of their 2017 sophomore release, & I’m Fine Today, which founder and frontman Justin Osborne explained in a news release is “about coming to terms with yourself and feeling okay with your place in the universe.”

Sonically, Susto is hard to pin down — on the band’s Facebook page, they describe their sound simply as “alternative,” but in all actuality, it’s an amalgamation of alt- and indie-rock and synth-pop with injections of country-based melodies (and the occasional twang in Osborne’s vocal performance).

“We just wanted to go further. We started something with the first record and we want to keep going in that direction,” Osborne said about the quintet’s sound on the release.

Tickets for the show are $15 and are available at the Park Theatre, Music Trader and online at Ticketfly. Music starts at 8 p.m.

— Erin Lebar

 

 

Canada Games Festival

After a two-day music break, the Canada Games Festival is back Aug. 10 with a collection of artists from Nova Scotia (as well as local singer-songwriter Renée Lamoureux, who opens the night).

Up first from the East Coast is folk-pop/rock artist Graham Ereaux, who performs under the moniker Devarrow. In 2015, Ereaux self-released his second record, The Great Escape, which earned him an East Coast Music Award nomination. He’s been described as a raconteur, painting vivid pictures with his lyrics about an isolated upbringing in Moncton and the five years he spent travelling. Ereaux is now based in Halifax and is working on a new EP and LP.

Halifax pop band Port Cities are also on the bill tonight; the three-piece has released just one album together (their 2017 self-titled debut) but the individual members all have long histories in the Canadian music scene as both performers and writers with and for other artists. The band describes their vibe as “Nashville meets Nova Scotia,” a balance of “the rustic and atmospheric, of indie intimacy and the sort of arena-pop anthems that betray Port Cities’ globe-trotting ambitions.”

Juno Award-winning fiddler Natalie MacMaster will amp up the trad factor with a set of Cape Breton-style fiddle tunes. In MacMaster’s nearly 30-year career, she’s taken home countless awards, released 12 albums (either as solo artist or with her husband, fellow fiddler Donnell Leahy) and become one of the most respected musicians in the country.

Antigonish, N.S.- bred, Hamilton-based rock band the Trews will handle the final slot of the night. The Trews have rolled through Winnipeg a lot in recent months, but fans never grow tired of their anthemic, well-crafted and catchy tracks that are as good for dancing and fist-pumping as they are for throwing a lighter in the air and giving it a good sway. The quartet’s most recent record, 2016’s Time Capsule, was a compilation of their greatest hits and favourite songs.

Fireworks are scheduled to close out the night at 10:30 p.m.

 

 

Half Pints Brewing Co. 11th anniversary

Winnipeg’s original craft brewery celebrates 11 years in the beer business this Saturday, and they’ve got plenty of fun brewing.

Before local breweries and brew pubs such as Torque, One Great City, Little Brown Jug, Peg Beer Co., Barn Hammer, Brazen Hall and (take a breath) the forthcoming Stone Angel, Trans Canada Brewing, Nonsuch and Oxus were in the picture, Half Pints Brewing Co. blazed a trail solo as the only locally owned brewery in Winnipeg. (Fort Garry Brewing Co. was owned by B.C.-based Russell.)

President/CEO David Rudge welcomes the onslaught of new brewers. While many were involved in the changes in legislation that relaxed regulations surrounding breweries and brew pubs a few years ago, the subsequent evolution of the city’s craft beer scene will be easier with established allies. “You can stand there and pound the drum all you want, but it’s still only going to sound like one person drumming,” says Rudge. “When you’ve got 10 or 15 other people doing the drumming with you, it’s a huge volume boost.”

The brewery opened in 2006 on Keewatin Street before moving to their current, larger space at 550 Roseberry St. just a couple of years later. Once the rules surrounding serving beer on-site changed (and after some extensive renovations), Half Pints’ tap room opened in late 2016.

On Saturday evening, they’re shutting down the tap room at 6 p.m. and taking the party outside for the rest of the night. There’ll be food truck action from Little Truck on the Prairie, outdoor games for kids and a sundown screening of the 1988 John Candy/Dan Aykroyd comedy classic The Great Outdoors. And there’ll be a candy bar dubbed, of course, the “John Candy Bar.”

And that’s all on top of the beer garden, which will feature brews from their regular rotation as well as a keg of their seasonal Black Galaxy black IPA. There may be some other special treats on tap as well. “As long as it’s ready, we’ll have a 50-litre keg of our kriek we’ve been working on since last year. The Manitoba cherries went into a cask, then there was a blended yeast culture that went into it and sat for a year,” explains Rudge. “We sampled it a couple of weeks ago — it’s delicious. I’m just waiting for it to carbonate.”

And while it took longer for the city’s craft beer scene to get where it is today than Rudge imagined, he reckons there’s nowhere to go but up. “There’s still a long way to go with the education side of things, flavour training and so forth,” Rudge says. “It’s like that point where someone turns 18 and suddenly they’re excited about what’s around them. Everyone here’s excited about learning — that’s three-quarters of the battle right there.”

As for what the next 11 years will bring for Half Pints, Rudge is equally but carefully optimistic. “It’s already gone way beyond what I thought it was going to be. The brewery’s going to need to grow — that’s just the reality of it. We’ve got to keep that balance between what’s enjoyable to come in and do — the fun stuff — and the actual growth of the company. It’s a tough balance.”

Tickets for the Half Pints Brewing Co. 11th Anniversary Celebration are $5 and can be purchased at the brewery at 550 Roseberry St.

— Ben MacPhee-Sigurdson

 

 

OneRepublic

Four albums in, Colorado pop-rock band OneRepublic has a lot of material to choose from as it heads out on a world tour that hits Winnipeg on Tuesday, Aug. 15.

“It’s going to be a longer set — probably closer to two hours — and it’s going to be very difficult to choose songs,” singer-guitarist Ryan Tedder told GQ magazine in October. “I honestly think that we’re going to… closely monitor Spotify and iTunes to see what our fans like and then we’ll actually base our set list off of which songs are the most popular. We’ll obviously do Apologize and Love Runs Out and Counting Stars.”

The quintet — which also includes Zach Filkins on guitar/vocals, Eddie Fisher on drums, Brent Kutzle on bass/cello/vocals and Drew Brown on guitar — released its newest album, Oh My My, last fall; the record didn’t have the staying power of the band’s previous three releases, which contained several smash singles.

However, there’s no doubt Tedder knows his way around a hit, having penned chart-toppers for such luminaries as Adele (Rumour Has It), Taylor Swift (I Know Places) and Beyoncé (Halo) and produced songs for the likes of Ed Sheeran, Maroon 5 and U2; OneRepublic just finished a stint of opening dates for the latter on their Joshua Tree tour.

Tickets for the Bell MTS Place show are $25-$135 at Ticketmaster. Opening acts are L.A. neo-soul band Fitz and the Tantrums and British X Factor winner James Arthur.

— Jill Wilson

 

Winnipeg cinephiles rejoice!

This August, there are lots of options for free, outdoor screenings of both new and retro releases that span every genre from action to romance and everything in between (and many of the films are also family-friendly.)

At Memorial Park — located at the corner of Broadway and Osborne Street — movies are screened every Tuesday night in August. The Little Rascals and Spice World have already been shown, but Space Jam (Aug. 15), It Takes Two (Aug. 22) and Jumanji (Aug. 29) are still coming up. Movies on Memorial always starts at dusk, which is currently around 9-9:30 p.m.

Transcona Biz at Centennial Square (135 Regent Ave.) screen their outdoor films on Thursdays — Aug. 10, it’s the Oscar-nominated musical La La Land and, later in the month, Beauty and the Beast (Aug.17), Dirty Dancing (Aug. 24) and Rogue One (Aug. 31) will be shown. These screenings also start at dusk.

Lastly, Assiniboine Park has a series of double-features which screen every Friday on the Lyric Lawn starting at 7 p.m. Aug.11, it’s Finding Dory and Captain America: Civil War, Aug. 18 will be Moana and Arrival and finally, Aug. 25 will feature Trolls and Rogue One.

— Erin Lebar