Musical friends join forces in fundraiser for tornado relief
After The Storm, Saturday night’s TD Place concert to raise funds for the United Way’s tornado-relief efforts, was a success well before the Jim Cuddy Band hit the stage. As Mayor Jim Watson noted early in the show, thousands of dollars in advance donations had been received before the music started.
When Cuddy began to strum, the number was at $40,000, with more expected. Anyone who missed the show can donate until midnight Monday online at giveafterthestorm.ca.
Throughout the night, volunteers with buckets were busy with on-the-spot donations as a multigenre program of Canadian musicians, heavily favouring artists from the Ottawa area, unfolded on the hockey arena stage.
The concert was originally intended as the 11th in a series of free annual shows hosted by the public-service union local CUPE 503, but when the Ottawa music industry got involved, the lineup expanded and it turned into one of the most ambitious fundraising concerts ever held in the region.
From a music fan’s perspective, it was an impressive showcase of the diversity of a vibrant music scene, with 13 performers ranging from Indigenous rapper Cody Coyote to soul singer Rebecca Noelle to franco Le Groupe Swing. The production was well-paced and professional, the sound was great, and there was minimal downtime between artists.
Cody Coyote had the honour of kicking off the proceedings with a couple of tracks about getting through hard times, inspired partly by his mother, who died of cancer last summer. Confident and engaging in the spotlight, he struck a positive note that lasted through the evening, and he introduced the crowd to a few words in Ojibway.
Fresh-faced Kalle Mattson, bearded Craig Cardiff and curlyhaired Jeremy Fisher each performed a couple of songs on acoustic guitar, generating the warmth of a song circle around a campfire. Mattson sounded a bit like Paul Simon, while Cardiff led a feel-good singalong and Fisher juxtaposed a song about cigarettes with one of his children’s tunes.
Fisher began to talk about the CDs he had available at the merch booth, but quickly pointed out that he didn’t want to go home with any money. He planned to donate his sales to the cause.
Another early highlight was the back-to-back performances by Rebecca Noelle and Kellylee Evans. The talented Ottawa singers shared the same hot band, featuring top-notch players such as trumpeter Ed Lister, saxman Brian Asselin and keyboardist Clayton Connell.
“Music for us is the thing that makes us feel in our most natural state,” remarked Noelle, “and to use it for something like this is incredible.”
In an electric-blue minidress, Evans spoke of her 2013 lightning strike and how it inspired her uplifting tune, Hands Up.
“I had to accept the things that were happening because you never knew what was coming,” she said, sharing a piece of advice that helped her get through tough times.
Ottawa’s Jim Bryson gave a terrific performance, too, and talked about the concerts he’d seen at the old Civic Centre, including The Clash, U2 and Motley Crue. Bryson also joined Sarah Harmer in a heartfelt performance of her song Silver Road, before Matt Mays explored the mellow end of his groove in a short acoustic set.
Orléans-raised country darling Kira Isabella showed up with Arnprior’s Rivertown Saints and got the crowd rocking with the Saints’ hit Cherry Bomb. Dreadlocked Julian Taylor gave a passionate solo acoustic mini-set, and Le Groupe Swing bridged the French-English divide with a crowd-pleasing blast of electro-pop.
In an audience estimated at 5,000 were dozens of residents bused in from neighbourhoods ravaged by the Sept. 21 tornadoes. “We are wrapping our arms around you,” said Angie Poirier, one of the evening ’s MCs, when she saw them arrive. “You’re the VIPs tonight.”
Music for us is the thing that makes us feel in our most natural state ... and to use it for something like this is incredible