The puck went in and the home town wins on Charlottetown Sunday Night.
Stompin’ Tom Connors, left town on a rail but now the hero CTV photo
Stompin’ Tom Connors
Too bad his sound crew didn’t have the basics of PA down. The sound was about the worst for a professional musician in years.
Reports from Summerside echo bad sound reports.
No other singer has captured the hearts of Canadians like Stompin’ Tom Connors with his love for us and Canada. He likes ordinary people all across our country and we love him for his ornery and independent spirit.
Charlottetown and Summerside are part of his 17 city summer 2009 tour that goes over to Newfoundland before it starts back up that New Brunswick line and parks at the terminal dock in Hamilton Ontario at the end of August.
After filling the Summerside Jubilee Theatre on Saturday Night, Stompin’ Tom got 1,500 cheering, singing and stomping fans all riled up on Sunday night. The crowd included more than 30 seniors in wheelchairs and little children who fell asleep before Stompin’ Tom got to encore the joys of Sudbury Saturday Night. It was a county music crowd with a lot of familiar faces from both Charlottetown and Kings County.
First Period
The night started slowly with Tom Hus a “country” singer from Alberta backed by Stompin’ Toms band. He was a phony.
“I’m a Canadian country singer because somebody has to sing Canadian country songs,” he protested in a deep and unauthentic Nashville twang. Hey Buddy, we don’t tawk lick that in Kaneeda. His songs were the corniest junk and he got half of the first set.
Then Stompin’ Tom came out, stompin board in hand and jumped right into four favorites. Included in that set were the great theme song of PEI Bud the Spud, Tillsonburg and The Ketchup Song. We were all singing along with the chorus, clapping and stompin at the right moment.
Everyone knows Bud. When my daughter moved to Ontario, they called her Bud the Spud. Bud and Ketchup are big crowd favorites. I play them every time I sing on Victoria Row or at the Farmer’s Market to the delight of his fans. It’s a nostalgic song today since we no longer have the ferry, Green Gables potatoes but we got Sebagoes.
Despite his 73 years, bad habits like smoking 108 cigarettes a day, and stoop from age, he seemed lively. He took a long break no doubt to encourage us to buy his swag. I got the Stompin’ Tom Songbook out of guilt for taking them off the Internet for years.
They had framed and autographed pictures with the new July 1st, 2009 Stompin’ Tom Canada Post Stamps which would have been cool but who wants to worry about a glassed frame at a concert.
Intermission – bad sound insults people who paid money for tickets
Looking down at the Front on House sound control on the ice floor, I was thinking “Man that’s cool they can do the sound with only a medium sized mixing board and small light control.” Well the truth was, they could only give us bad lighting and poor sound. I estimated the distortion level in the vocal range about 20% which drove people crazy with the clipping.
The bass was non-existent and the middle so muddled all the instruments just merged into a country band sound. Amazingly, Stompin’ Tom’s steel string guitar cut through the clutter with ease.
The sound man was pretty defensive about the sound. He blamed it on the arena, the people who moved the stage too far forward, etc. etc. They just weren’t prepared to do a proper job. There was only one column per side which mean the people on the sides were getting spill off the sides of the horns. It was dreadful.
Friends from up west say the sound was pretty bad in Summerside. “You couldn’t hear the first guy (Tim Hus) at all. When Stompin’ Tom came out it got better.”
Of course, part of that is the Civic Centre who like the money from concerts but refuse to treat the building for sound. The reverberations are awful. However, I’ve seen Brian Adams and Willie Nelson in that building and the sound was not an issue.
Stompin’ Tom needs to upgrade his sound for his fans sake. It’s only been forty years since The Grateful Dead invented the modern concert sound system called the Wall of Sound. If you respect your fans, don’t diss them with dreadful sound.
Second Period
Six more songs from what’s his name and I was getting antsy. Were we going to be dished up only 4 more Stompin’ Tom songs?
Not a chance. Out comes Stompin’ Tom, board held high, and breaks out into the official song of Canadian hockey, The Hockey Game. The crowd went wild. Then he jumped in Hockey Mum Tribute. What a guy!
There was something special about to happen. Stompin’ Tom had been pretty nostalgic to his old adopted home on PEI all night. He introduced Johnie Reid who was in the audience. Johnny Reid hosted many a Stompin’ Tom performance on and off the stage when he had the best country bar in PEI. JR gave Anne Murray a place to start as well. So he sang JR’s Bar and we knew what he was singing about.
There was a lot of reminiscing happening for Stompin’ Tom and for the fans. We love Stompin’ Tom the rebel, country singer and big guy from Skinners Pond, up near Palmer’s Road you know.
He sat down for a really sad song, The Ballad of Stompin Tom. He’s a still wandering boy without a home thinking about his mom, her itinerant life and being forced into an adopted farm home on PEI at an early age. He kept telling us stories about how he ran away from Skinner’s Pond to get back to St. John and his mom over and over. He made it outta here when he was 13 and started a life on the road hoping someday to make it big.
We’re glad he did because he is our Stompin’ Tom, the country singer who sings about places his been in Canada, people he met and the life he has lived.
Third Period
The crowd went wild, well as wild as older folks do, when Stompin’ Tom came back on the stage for his encore and Sudbury Saturday Night, the hymn to the start he got in the Ontario mining belt. We belted ‘er out one more time for “The girls are playing bingo, the boys are getting stinko…on Sudbury Saturday Night.”
The puck went in and the home town won for it was Charlottetown and Stompin’ Tom Connors had come home to us. What a night.
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