The CCMA Fans’ Choice came to Prince George Wednesday night to perform in front of 3,500 people at CN Centre during his A Place Called Love tour.
Johnny Reid took to the stage with his full band, including a brass section, drums, strings, keyboards and two lovely back-up singers.
The opening act was The Stellas, a married couple - Brad and Marylynne Stella, whose claim to fame was their appearance on a States-side reality show called Can You Duet.
The Stellas told a good story and entertained the crowd by singing their original songs Woe Is Me, Riding in the Backseat and others, including a very nice cover of Love Hurts, which was done in such a positive way with their very sunny personalities shining through, it didn’t really seem to hurt all that much.
Johnny Reid, who also won the Canadian Country Music award for single of the year for Dance with Me, songwriter of the year and top selling album of the year, came onto the stage with flare. There is no subtlety to this performer. He is bigger than life and makes sure everyone feels the love as he shares his talent with his audience.
After singing a few of his hit songs Reid sat down for a moment to tell people that he never called himself a country singer and when his dad would mention a folk singer, well people’s reaction would always be “Ah, folk.” And with Reid’s Scottish accent it sounded more like a curse than a credit to his name.
Very funny stuff.
People were completely engaged with Reid, the person, not just the showman.
Reid sang Dance With Me, Darlin’, Today I’m Gonna Try to Change the World, and of course Thank You as his next to last song.
Last September, when Reid came to town, he went up into the audience within the first two songs. This time, he chose to wait to the end of the night to travel through CN Centre and people were thrilled.
Little girls were serenaded, seniors were hugged and young ladies held out their CDs for autographs. He was swarmed wherever he went, but there was never any call for his bodyguard to use a hand on anyone. Reid made sure even the over-enthusiastic burly man in the crowd who wanted a bear hug got what he needed and then he moved on to join the ladies who wanted simply to kiss his cheek and squeeze him tight.
The evening was well worth the price of admission and as Reid said, he wanted to make sure everyone left the centre feeling like they got their money’s worth.
Feedback from the audience as they filed out of the show was very positive and people who did not know who Johnny Reid was when they walked in, were fans walking out. This was the theme for several men who got dragged to the concert by their wives.
Check out the story of how I met Johnny Reid before the concert at www.pgcitizen.ca. in the A&E section of the home page and there’s a photo album on the Citizen website as well. There are 32 photos in the album for fans to enjoy.
