Live music explodes back to Festival Country de Lotbinière with Matt Lang at the helm

The day started out looking much like a repeat of 2019 which saw heavy rains overtake the venue but Matt Lang promised that the rain would push past by showtime and although light rain continued on and off through Manny Blu’s, just as Matt had promised, the passed and a rainbow took its place just in time for Kelsi Mayne to take to the stage.

It’s been since June 2019 since we gathered in Lotbinière. But here we are, it’s September 25 and live music is back on stage in St. Agapit.

The festival moves from 2 days to 3 days this year and opening night was a great reminder of how much we missed in the year that silenced live music.

Montreal’s Manny Blu kicked off the festivities, no doubt extremely comfortable on stage in his home province. He set the bar with a high energy set full of his own singles and a solid mix of country and rock covers. It was my first time catching Manny perform live and I can definitely say it won’t be the last.

Our good friend Kelsi Mayne picked things up after Manny and easily keep the energy flowing through the fast growing crowd. By the time she took to the stage there was an obvious electric energy pulsing through the crowd of hungry Québec country fans. If you’ve ever seen Kelsi live you’d know that the more the crowd feeds off of her the better her performance gets. For 45 minutes Kelsi took the crowd through her personal hits and a few of her favourites from other artists. Something tells me Quebec country fans haven’t seen the last of Kelsi and Kelsi is soon going to see a whole lot of Quebec streams coming into her Spotify or Apple Music stats. If she isn’t on your radar yet…what are you waiting for? You can also checkout my chat with Kelsi on our SCE Sound Bites Podcast which aired on Thursday.

Jason Benoit kept the party going with hits like “Saturdays For the Girls”, “Gone Long Gone” and “Crazy Kinda Love”. Jason’s been taking a trip back to his musical roots with his recent single which gives off more of a 90’s vibe than you get with most modern country music. Jason and I spoke prior to his performance and he told me of how the pandemic made him reevaluate his musical style. “There’s so many other great artists out there who can do pop country way better than I can, so I think if I brought in more of a traditional element into my music and try to blend both worlds…to try to blend the two together…bring a little more organic sound to the music.” he said. With a new album due out in the near future Jason thrilled the crowd with some new music including “Lot About a Little” the first taste of his new throwback sound and if the response last night was any indication…it’s going to be a hit! You can catch my interview with Jason exclusively on Spotify here.

In 2018 we paid our first ever visit to Lotbinière. I vividly remember standing backstage, getting ready to head into Brett Kissel’s trailer for an interview when the opening act came out of his trailer. The three of us quickly exchanged pleasantries as we went into the trailer and he went on to the stage. After our interview Brett Kissel and I stood side stage watching this, Quebec based, artist perform and we both commented that there was something special and unique about him, the artist’s name was Matt Lang. At the time Matt Lang knew very little english, basically enough to say “Hi my name is Matt”.

In the years since I’ve gotten to know Matt Lang a bit better, as has the rest of Canada. Last year Matt Lang won the Sirius XM Top of the Country competition and while he was performing at the European festival circuit the global pandemic cut things short. Matt and his team had to catch an emergency flight home from Germany. I spoke with Matt shortly after the pandemic started and just before the release of his sophomore album “More”. “We could have pushed back the release, but nothing can keep a musician from playing music and wanting to share it. We might not have a big release party for this one, but when the time comes that we can get back on stage, we will give the fans a hell of a show,” said Lang about releasing the album during the pandemic.

Fast forward a few years and Matt Lang is back at Lotbinière and he’s set to make good on his promise to “give the fans a hell of a show”. I spoke to Matt shortly after arriving at the hotel and I immediately sensed his excitement. You know that feeling you get when it’s the day before you go to Disneyland and you can barely contain your excitement? That’s what I got from Matt yesterday. At the time it was a heavy downpour outside but Matt said don’t worry by the time the show starts everything will be perfect….and he was right! Listen to our full interview below:

One thing I’ve learned about Matt Lang is that when he says he’s going to do something he does it. So when he told me last June that he was going to give the fans a hell of a show…he wasn’t joking. Matt exploded onto the stage amidst pyro and fireworks last night in front of a few thousand screaming fans. For a few hours the stresses of the pandemic melted away and all was right in the world again. From his biggest hits, for an artist with only two albums he’s surprisingly got a few big hits, to some well placed covers by bands like Brothers Osborne and AC/DC the set was as explosive as the fireworks and pyro being fired off on stage.

Something that made last night special, for me anyway, was having some good friends as part of the lineup on opening night. As you all know I was blessed with having a live music venue close to home over the last two summers. Over those two years we’ve had artists like Mackenzie Leigh Meyer, Suzi Kory and Kelsi Mayne perform on our stage. One thing that all three of these artists have in common is band members. When you work closely with artists like we did throughout the pandemic you develop a certain bond with them. They’ve all heard my stories about Lotbinière and last night they all got to live the Lotbinière experience, and even partake in a line dance or two. So Kelsi, Jeff, AJ we’re just going to need to find a way to have ya’ll back again next year because last night was too much fun!

As I get ready to head into Day 2 which features performances by Phil G Smith, Five Roses, Brittany Kennel and High Valley I can’t but wonder if tonight’s lineup has what it takes to keep up the momentum that was started last night? Time will tell.

Of course if you’re in Quebec and are looking for something to do tonight why not come down and check this festival out. As I’ve been saying for the last 5 years…you won’t regret it. You can get full festival details here: https://countrylotbiniere.com/

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