Seven Music Fest Inaugural First Show a Winner

Every once in a while you get to stand on the cusp of something great, about to begin. And if you’re lucky you’ll have a friend or two by your side to share that experience. Such it was we found ourselves in St Albert, Alberta this weekend a mere 800 kilometres from home, ready to experience the very first Seven Music Fest. And we were sharing the experience with none other than Sam Roberts Band.

With more than 5 bands on the bill including Vancouver’s own Daniel Wesley, Current Swell, Tupelo Honey and closer Sam Roberts Band, festival organizers went big right out of the gate. Prices were affordable enough for moms and dads to bring the entire family, and the grassy natural amphitheatre of Mission Hill Park was littered with festival sized chairs and blankets galore along with a swath of die hards up at the stage ready to party the afternoon and evening away.

Daniel Wesley was up around dinner time and provided a great live performance while people sat in their prospective ‘camps’ or stood grooving to the classic rock-reggae sounds Wesley is familiar for.

Current Swell kicked up the volume a notch and the stage area became plugged with the 20-something’s, with a few long lanky males crowd surfing over the barricades and into the waiting arms of bemused security who escorted them around the short fence and back into the crowd. The majority of fans up front knew all the words and sang nearly every song. Good sized crowd but the experienced knew this was just the practice run for the band called SRB.

With a quick change over and sound level check the anticipation grew as did the crowd up front. Security cautioned those in the front to not push as they held on to the fence to keep it from being pushed over but, as soon as the crowd saw the 5 man band enter the stage, the pushing stopped and the dancing began!

Sam Roberts was more talkative, less intense in facial features tonight than we’ve ever seen him – but less intense in expressions didn’t mean any less intense in performance! If anything, the crowd was so into the show, that he could spend less energy to bring us on the journey and more energy making the musical journey memorable. People pogo’d, two-stepped, danced, and crowd surfed (a first for me to see at an SRB show) and sang all the good parts. Sam regaled us the history of the ‘Seven Hills’ as being the best seven tobogganing hills in Canada amid cheers, thanked the organizers and volunteers for such an amazing experience, mentioned horse races the band had gone to see that afternoon, and segued into “a song about a gambler”;  the semi-autobiographical ‘Never Enough’ one of the songs off their latest Lo-Fantasy album.

With a set list of old favorites and newer songs, the need to move your body never let up and after a 3 song encore that included the only song that allows Roberts to ditch the guitar and dance his last bit of energy off (Brother Down) the show was over, and happy exhausted festival goers made their way out of the park. As Roberts said from the stage tonight, we stood on the cusp of something great. WE were the ones to experience the inaugural performance at Seven Hills and just as he was thrilled to be on the first band bill, we were thrilled to be there participating as well!

Here’s to many more Seven Music Fests in our future.

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photos: Marley and Dad from Mat, Crowd shot (cover photo) from Lisa Mueller, Set List from Cara used with permission