It was a hot time in the cold town Sunday night, as the star of the show said at CN Centre.
Terri Clark, eight-time Canadian Country Music Fan's Choice award winner, appeared in front of 1,600 people with Crystal Shawanda opening the show.
"It's colder than a witch's tit in the refrigerator here," Clark said with a smile. She'll be heading for Calgary Monday to visit her aunt and do two weeks worth of laundry.
When a fan offered her red roses, Clark vamped it up, pretending to have just won a beauty contest, fluttering her hands in front of her face like the typical beauty queen and saying I won!
Then she stopped and looked at the guy and asked him what she had to do for the roses. One audience member suggested 'he wants to do your laundry!' Clark shook her finger at the naughty man. Pretty funny stuff.
Crystal Shawanda, who won the Canadian Country Music Award for Female Artist of the Year in 2008, opened the show for Clark and entertained us all with a few original songs as well as a cover of Patsy Cline's Sweet Dreams. Shawanda has a strong powerful voice and sang her song Fight For Me and her chart-topper Beautiful Day to an appreciative audience. Shawanda stuck really close to her stool during her acoustic presentation and after watching super showmen like Johnny Reid, who swept through the crowd never missing a beat while men and women alike hugged him, and Reba who can capture a mood with a side-long glance and an arched eyebrow, we need a bit more from Shawanda than sitting on a stool.
Clark started with her song I Just Wanna Be Mad for a While that got the foot-stomping going very early, as she kept going and sang about her Gypsy Boots, Emotional Girl, If I Were You, Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me, and the show-stopper for me was Now That I Found You.
"People tell me my songs are their break-up songs, people don't come up to me and tell me they've used my songs for their wedding," Clark explained during the concert. Except for Now That I Found You, which is a tear-jerker song about finally finding the right person.
Clark continued her hell-on-wheels anthem songs with No Fear, A Little Gasoline, What Happens in Vegas (Follows You Home).
Then Clark changed it up a bit and introduced a new song that will be featured on her upcoming album called Northern Girl - no title on the new CD as yet.
"I thought there was enough songs about girls from the south," Clark explained.
She also took a few minutes to pay tribute to her mother Linda who lost her battle with cancer April 4 by singing a new song I Want You to Smile. Clark was very emotional throughout the song.
"Sometimes it hits me like this, usually it doesn't," she explained.
Clark gave the nod to Loretta Lynn with a cover of Honky Tonk Girl and Coal Miner's Daughter, then smoothly slipped into Mama He's Crazy from the Judds, and then wished us all a Merry Christmas (Where Ever in the World You Are).
Clark said the party would really start when she sang Better Things To Do and invited everyone to dance near the stage. She really rocked that one and had everyone singing with her as she continued the concert.
The encore was a bold song choice. She picked Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison Blues and her own If You Want Fire. Great way to end the concert.
