Night of Firsts at Festival Country de Lotbinière

We’re back in St. Agapit, Quebec this weekend for Festival Country de Lotbinière. The weather is perfect, the beer is ice cold, the poutine is amazing and the entertainment is red hot. Friday night kicked off with incredible performances by 2 amazing artists leading up to a high energy, and whiskey fueled performance by reigning Canadian country Queen Meghan Patrick.

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Our second annual adventure to the beautiful Lotbinière region of Quebec involved a little bit of business and a whole lot of fun. We brought our friend Danny Sylvestre along for the ride to meet with festival organizers in a bid to get him a slot at the festival next summer. We’ve been working on some projects with Danny and his team over the past year and no doubt he’d rock the stage here in St. Agapit.

If you followed any of our coverage last summer you’d know that one of the culinary highlights for me was the Angus Poutine at Angus Zone so, naturally, I couldn’t resist ordering it again. If you’re ever in this region and like steak this restaurant is a must, under salads in their menu they have an Angus Salad…I’ve never seen a salad made out of steak but if it exists that’s my kind of salad. I have to give this place another shout out, the service is exceptional and they put up with our horrible french and give us their best english service with smile every time. Definitely one of my favourite restaurants that I’ve come across in my travels.

Montreal duo Five Roses kicked off the party and quickly turned the dial up to full with a fun high energy set. The crowd loved them and there’s no doubt that they loved the crowd. Five Roses are about as new as it gets when it comes to emerging country acts and if they play their cards right I think there’s a place for a new country duo in the market right now. Look forward to seeing where they’ll bloom next.

Dan Davidson made his debut in la belle province last night and, based on the crowd reaction and his own reaction when we caught up with him this morning, something tells us Quebec will be seeing a lot more of Dan Davidson in the future. When I caught up with Dan this morning I asked him if it was intimidating coming to a province where he really didn’t speak the language or know if he would be able to communicate with the fans. “I don’t know if I’d say it is intimidating, I guess you don’t really know what to expect but in the end people have a way of communicating with each other and music is a universal language.” he said.

The language barrier didn’t impede Dan and his band at all as they wasted little time making new friends on and off the stage. At a meet and greet before his set everyone wanted to get a photo with Dan. While on stage he told the crowd “we didn’t think anyone out here knew our music but you guys know all of our songs”.

 

Dan and I talked about the differences between being a travelling country band vs a travelling rock band from his days with Tupelo Honey and what prompted the shift in format. “The days with Tupelo Honey were a lot of fun. We saw a fair bit of success and had a song featured in a commercial in the United States but then bars that would host rock bands started to close and radio stations were either Five Finger Death Punch or the opposite end of the spectrum and there was little opportunity for a rock band to make any headway.” In 2014 Dan made the shift to country music and since that day he has won four Alberta Country Music Awards (Single of the Year, Song of The Year, Video of the Year and Rising Star) and in 2017 he received his first ever nominations for the Canadian Country Music Association Awards (Rising Star, Songwriter of the Year).

When you talk to Dan he has a lifetime of stories from the road and he loves to tell them, which tells me there’s no question that he loves what he does. It comes across on stage as well and it energises the crowd even more. Dan brings his show to Ayers Cliff tonight where he’ll experience another first, his first headlining show! Sounds like Dan might be spending a little bit more time on the road in the coming months, he’ll be part of the soon to be announced phase 2 of Brett Kissel’s We Were That Song Tour.

The headliner for the night was none other than Canada’s reigning country queen Meghan Patrick. We tried to setup a formal meeting with Meghan but aside from a passing hello as she was getting on the elevator at the hotel as I was getting off the same elevator we weren’t able to coordinate a time, it’s tough on the first day of a festival sometimes. Artists have their pre-show routines and even I needed to get settled into the hotel and prepare for meetings of my own.

That aside Meghan took to the stage to a rockstars welcome for her first ever headlining show. When it comes to Meghan Patrick I think it’s cool that Sound Check Entertainment has been along for her ride since the very beginning when our former photojournalist, Trish Cassling, saw something special in her and wrote a preview feature on this rising young singer. It wasn’t long after this feature that things started to happen for Meghan, first a record deal with Warner Music Canada, then an album and then last year she netted 7 nominations for the Country Music Association of Ontario, out of which she would go on to win 4 (Album of the Year, Female Artist of the Year, Rising Star and Music Video of the Year); she also received 3 Country Music Association of Canada Nominations out of which she won 2 (Female Artist of the Year and Rising Star Award). The only award / nomination that still alludes here is the prestigious JUNO Award, but with her critically sophomore CD, Country Music Made Me Do It, out now and the JUNOs returning to her home province of Ontario for 2019 here’s hoping she’ll find her way onto that ballot and make a trip to the podium in London next spring.

Meghan kept the party going well into the night proving once again that the ladies of country music are a growing force to be reckoned with. If Meghan is any indication the future of women in Canadian country music is very very strong. Catch her in Ottawa tonight as Meghan takes to the stage to help celebrate Richmond’s 200th Anniversary.

We’re all set for night #2 here in St. Agapit as we get ready to head into the festival grounds to catch performances by Ottawa’s own Rainwater Whiskey, Matt Langevin, Eric Etheridge and Brett Kissel.

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