Article published in the November 2018 issue of the Beacon.

I love live music, of many different genres. I also love travel, both domestic and international. These are not new affections, but ones I have embraced from an early age. Whether at rock music festivals in the late 60s or the opera houses of Vienna and Budapest in later years, I’ve always found something quite magical about combining these two loves, particularly when my other love is also present. Diane teases me about my knack for finding funky jazz or blues bars wherever we travel, whether it be Mama Rosa’s in the back streets of Chicago, the basement of the Caveau des Oubliette in Paris or a Fado bar in the Bairro Alto district of Lisbon.

To really immerse yourself in this combination of loves, weekend music festivals provide an interesting option. Diane and my first weekend away together was to CountryFest in the small northern Manitoba town of Dauphin, which had attracted many top country stars from across North America. Several years later we travelled to a Zydeco music festival which had no formal seating, just three huge dance floors. A very popular recent trend has been music focused cruises. We did a folk music cruise in the Caribbean which featured over 80 concerts and 40 performers over a seven day period, providing an opportunity to get up close and personal with some of the entertainers. Some popular artists, such as the late Jim Morris, have organized destination gatherings for their fans in exotic locales such as Tahiti. More recently, Diane and I drove down to Key West for Meeting of the Minds, the annual Parrot Head convention, and I rendezvoused with friends for a Brews and Blues festival in Colorado.

Our commutes between Canada and Florida have occasionally seemed like Musical Odysseys when we stop off in the Americana music Mecca’s of Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans.

Looking back, what have been some of the highlights? Seeing Bruce Springsteen and Diana Kraal in intimate settings before they made it big and Roy Orbison and Tina Turner in similar small rooms after their peak. The Vienna Boys Choir in an Austrian palace was breathtaking. Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic performing Beethoven to celebrate the January 1973 British entry to the EU was sublime – I wonder who will play at the conclusion of Brexit – Dire Straits perhaps. I once attended a business conference in Frankfurt, which I might otherwise have passed on, when I realized I could see Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler perform together in that city at the same time. 

It is much easier to obtain good last minute seats when traveling alone, but with a little advance research and planning it’s sometimes amazing who you can hear and see on the road, even when travelling as a group.