Jesse Roper is one of the blues-folk guitar soldiers of B.C., a young veteran of the provincial scene, but he has rarely been to Prince George.
Even when he has been here to play, his performance was quite underground. He jazzed up his buddy Wade's wedding reception the last time he was in P.G.
Tonight a much different audience awaits him. It'll be big and it'll be ready for anything out of a six-string. He is the opening act for Big Wreck at their Vanier Hall concert.
"I recently got on with the Feldman Agency (concert booking company) and when I checked through their roster and saw Big Wreck that was the one I thought, man, wouldn't it be just awesome to get to do a tour with them? And then I got a call from my manager," Roper said.
He's had some other career catalysts in the last year or so. He got to open for Burton Cummings on a 13-date junket, and he also got to open for fellow B.C. guitar slinger Colin James.
The interactions with the headline act are never predictable, and as a guy who goes along to get along in life, he was just happy to get the invitation.
But he still got surprised with some conversation with those stars, like Cummings advising him to eat nutritious food and take care of his health if he hoped to go long in the music industry, because playing an instrument on stage is highly physical and touring Canada is demanding on the body.
With Colin James, Roper came ready. He pulled out a photo of the two of them together when James was a rising star and Roper was six years old. "He went into the dressing room and showed it around to all the guys in his band, and he ran out and found his mum to show it to her, too. It was great. And we had a great talk after that."
Roper is something of an anomaly in the music scene. He isn't driven by material fame. His reason for getting up in the morning is the pursuit of getting better at the guitar and the intellectual enjoyment of putting together a song. He lets them jiggle out of his head and wiggle onto the page in whatever form they come. If it's a bluegrass tune, he'll go ahead and write a bluegrass tune. If it feels like a ska song, he'll allow the ska to unfold. Country, rock, blues, it doesn't matter. And he'll make you laugh, rip your heart out, get your toes tapping, or tell you a wild story.
"I'll write a song that's within radio parameters if I know I've got something close," he said. He's not one to spurn mainstream ideals. He feels most musicians have the same genre-bending and mood-melding mixes in their minds, but the famous ones hid the stuff that didn't fit their public personas.
Now, he said, he blasts his music out on Spotify or YouTube (two of his videos - the zombie inspired Yukon Girl and the bling-rapper parody Quality Time - have made his sense of humour as famous as his musicianship) and the audiences are available. Gone are the days when independent and shape-shifting performers like himself have to squeeze down the mainstream radio bottleneck.
Roper lives in the agrarian suburb of Metchosin on the outer rim of Victoria. That's within easy striking distance of this area's summertime music events like ArtWells in Wells-Barkerville, Music On The Meadow in Fort St. James, Robson Valley in Dunster, the Hay Fever event at Grassy Plains, etc. His personal goal is to perform at every major music festival the province has to offer, and with the momentum his career's gained this year, he likes his own chances.
His brand new record, Access To Infinity, came out about four weeks ago. It follows up on the album Red Bird that came out in 2015 to loud applause.
Roper and Big Wreck will generate a fresh wave of applause tonight at Vanier Hall at 8.
Tickets are available online at www.ticketsnorth.ca or at the door while supplies last.
