Dear Rouge Fire Up the Ice Dragon Boat Festival

This past weekend was the 3rd edition of the Ottawa Ice Dragon Boat Festival, a winter spin on their extremely popular summer event. Similar to the summer occurrence, this festival raises money for various local charities while providing a fun experience for all.  In tandem with the competitions and charitable endeavour, both seasonal iterations of this festival have become widely popular for the free concert series the public can attend. Through the years, the stage has been headlined by some of the hottest acts in Canadian music. This year’s featured artists were electro-rock energized Dear Rouge and the reggae and ska sensation Bedouin Soundclash. Both are Juno Award winners for Breakthrough Group of the Year in 2016 and 2006, respectively.

On Saturday evening the festival presented the awards to the racers, many donning creative costumes, before transforming the inside of Dow’s Lake Pavilion into a concert hall. Jeremy Fisher took to the stage soon after the presentations were complete and regaled the crowd with humorous stories of his life journey and how this interwove into the various songs he was performing. At one point an audience member shouted out a request for his Happy Day (Birthday) song for a friend who was celebrating and he graciously obliged, although with a slight lyrical change out of respect to the families with younger children present. Jeremy even snuck into his set the song Turtle and Guy, from his Jeremy Fisher Junior series. If you have younger children you should check out his Junior show at the NAC in March. For his finale, he asked an audience member to join him on stage to play out the final notes on the harmonica to great applause.

After Jeremy Fisher finished, tables were cleared from the floor to allow the audience to get up close for the headliner Dear Rouge. The band, led by Danielle and Drew McTaggart, wasted no time grabbing the audience’s attention. Under a sweep of red light, Danielle welcomed the intimacy of the crowd’s proximity by frequently interacting with and stepping into the crowd on the dance floor. Dear Rouge’s last performance in Ottawa was at Bronson Centre, so this more intimate show was a real treat for the fans.

The event is a fun way to warm up from winter’s chill while supporting a charitable endeavour.