November TO shows

I haven't spent a lot of time at home lately, been doing a lot of travelling and playing gearing up for this exciting day. In mid November I went to Toronto to play 3 shows, one of which had a great surprise which made it one of the single most memorable performances of my life.

When I got to Toronto, I spent one day there to hang out with my sister and brother-in-law and their two little ones before the rehearsal with the band the next day. Rehearsal was fantastic, I had some of Canada's top players playing with me, Kevin Fox on guitar/vocals/cello, Peter Fusco on bass, and Blake Manning keeping us all together on percussion and vocals...I knew it was going to be a killer combo as soon as we started playing the first song. The rehearsal wasn't easy as I was incredibly sick, had the horrible cold that seemed to be travelling from west to east (I helped in bringing it to Ontario, sorry!) and was making every thing hard. All of the artists from BC and I were struggling a lot!

The show was at the Revival Theatre on College St in Toronto and it was called "Larger Than Life - A Celebration of Aboriginal Music" and was filmed in HD and will be shown in Cineplex movie theatres in January, I'll keep you posted! It was produced by Brent Bain and "Working Title Artists" and they did an outstanding job at putting together an incredibly diverse show that blended perfectly.

When show time came that evening, I was feeling really sick but my voice was cooperating thanks to some Vicks cough syrup so I wasn't worrying too much, I had a bit of the cool raspy thing goin' on so I got by in style. We went on stage and played a really great set that all of us were impressed with, leaving us wanting to play more and more together (I can't wait for that to happen!)

After we hung out for a while downstairs in the greenroom, the guys left to go home, leaving me waiting for my big surprise.

I'm going to rewind to aproximately a week before this show...

I woke up one morning thinking about this show coming up, wondering whether or not my manager had been able to find anyone that was available (I hadn't heard from him as he was in one of the many Nova Scotia cell phone black holes of, I think it was, Cornerbrook) so I got to thinking and dreaming "who would I REALLY want to come play with me?" so I wrote an email to Hawksley to play percussion for me...unfortunately for me he's been on tour for a while now...
And then a wave of confidence came over me, picked up my phone, scrolled down to the "B's" and called Mr. Bruce Cockburn...no answer, left a message "Hey Bruce, um, it's Sierra calling, how you doing? I have a bit of a crazy idea I'd like to swing by you...give me a call back when you get this..."
Sure enough later that day he calls me, and I ask him if he would play for me in the show. To my great great joy he said yes :) He had somewhere he had to be earlier that evening (during my show) but I called the producer and said "here's what's happening...what can we do?..."

Well we put an extra surprise set before the closing act of the show...just me and bruce...my fiddle, his guitar, and our two voices...and it was magic, and a dream come true for me. He's been my idol since I was a child and we've met on a few occassions and always kept in touch, but never had the chance to play together, and it was beyond words. We opened with his song "Pacing The Cage", followed by a cockburn-ized verison of "Possibility" and then closed out with his incredibly powerful song, and one which was very suiting for the room that evening, "Stolen Land."

As soon as I get some, I'll post some pictures for all of you to see.
We went and hung out with my mom at a little un-assuming restaurant on College Street until the wee hours of the morning, then drove us home to my sisters house in his big Volvo van.



On saturday night that week, November 29th I think, I played at the Manitoba Music Showcase at the Liberation Lounge by the docks. I had the fabulous Stuart Cameron on guitar and was lucky enough to have him drag Peter Fusco along again too to play bass. When we finished the set all three of us said "jeez...that was a killer set", and that's always a great feeling after you've been doing so many shows for so long, that feeling becomes rare sometimes, but it's so inspiring.



I didn't even get to go home before heading to the airport to meet up with the whole crew for the Canadian Forces Arctic Show Tour. We all met at the Tim Hortons in Terminal 1 by arrivals, had a coffee, and hopped on the military bus to CF Base Trenton.


I'm going to save the rest of these stories for my next blog...this one is long enough, and there is so much to tell you about the beautiful great white north.

Love,

Sierra