Old Dominion with some help from Whiskey Jam brought No Bad Vibes to Ottawa

After a 3 year absence Old Dominion made their return to Canada on Friday night as their No Bad Vibes tour made it’s Canadian debut at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa.Most of the time when these big groups from south of the border come up to Canada for a tour the undercard is heavily laden with rising US country acts…while I have nothing against that it’s nice to see a big name act from the US actually recognize the scope of talent we have up here in Canada and invite a few of those acts to join them.

Old Dominion partnered with Whiskey Jam, one of the foremost venues to discover up and coming writers and artists often before they become stars. Starting in January 2011 as a Monday night event in midtown Nashville. The first few months saw guest artists like OneRepublic, Kip Moore, Brett Eldredge, David Nail, Chris Young, Dustin Lynch and The Fray. In 10 years it’s become a go to place for new music discovery, and the occasional big name, in Nashville and, if Old Dominion started a new trend, could become a touring sensation.

The Whiskey Jam opening artists kicked off with Canada’s own Steven Lee Olsen. Having moved to Nashville about 15 years ago to pursue music it was nice to see Steven start to realize some success from his efforts being able to coming home to perform in front of thousands as part of this tour. With Friday night being his official national arena debut on his home turf there was no doubt it was a special moment for both Steven and those in attendance. Conveniently the performance coincided with the release of his newest single “Outta Yours” (which you’ll find on our Canadian Country Playlist) which he included in his set along with the smash hit he wrote for Keith Urban “Blue Ain’t Your Color”.

Next up was another Canadian artist, Vancouver’s own, Shawn Austin. Austin kicked off his set with his 2018 hit “You Belong” and then treated the crowd to a few tracks off of his 2022 album Planes Don’t Wait as well as the single that started it all for him “Paradise Found”, for which he received his first Gold Record from Dallas Smith last night in Toronto.

It was great to see these Canadian boys enjoying some much deserved time in the limelight, here’s hoping that opportunities like this for Canadian artists continue on both sides of the border in years to come.

Taking us into the headline act was Deming, New Mexico native Frank Ray. I’ve been paying so much attention to the Canadian Country scene over the last several years that, until Friday, had never heard of Frank. Needless to say after seeing him perform live he’s definitely on my radar now, and I suspect that of many in attendance on Friday night. Frank’s style is unique to what we’re used to in modern country music. It’s country music with a twist of lime and the performance comes with a shot of tequila. Still relatively new to the scene Frank has recently started to see some success with his 2021 single “Country’d Look Good on You” hitting the top 40 on Billboard’s country chart last January. We only got a 5 song sampler of Frank Ray’s tequila country but my gut tells me that it won’t be long before we see more of him up here in the great white north.

Up next, Old Dominion..if memory serves the last time we saw them in Ottawa was at TD Place in 2017 with their Meat and Candy tour which also featured a Canadian opening act, Ottawa’s own Kira Isabella. More recently the group brought their We Are Old Dominion Tour to Leon’s Centre in Kingston in March 2020, one of the last shows before COVID shut everything down. Fast forward a few years and they’re back.

Things have escalated a bit since their last Canadian tour and so has their stage setup. A massive stage with a t-shaped catwalk that went all the way to center ice greeted fans when they arrived at the arena. Two large screens at the top left, and right, of the stage ensured that there would be no bad seats in the house for this show.

The next, almost 2 hours, would be a hit parade of Old Dominion classics as well as some surprise performances of songs they wrote for others. (be sure to visit our Instagram stories for video highlights of the evening).

The show started with “Freedom Like You”, from their 2023 EP Memory Lane, which seamlessly tied into “Make It Sweet” followed by the tour title track “No Hard Feelings”. The first half of the show was hit after hit with songs like “Break Up With Him”, “No Such Thing as a Broken Heart”, “Written in the Sand” and more. At the midway point Trevor, Matthew, Geoff, and Brad took to the center of the catwalk for their We Wrote This segment of the show. The four took turns performing songs they had each written for other country artists including “Sangria” for Blake Shelton, “A Guy Walks Into A Bar” for Tyler Farr, “Say You Do” for Dierks Bentley, “Better Dig Two” for The Band Perry, “Wild Hearts” for Keith Urban and “Make You Miss Me” for Sam Hunt.

The rest of the show continued like the first half with one hit after another including songs like “Snapback”, “Hotel Key”, “Memory Lane”, “One Man Band”, “Song For Another Time”, yet another song that they wrote for another artist, Kenny Chesney’s “Save It For A Rainy Day”  and more before capping off the show with a mashup of Garry Glitter’s “Rock ‘N Roll Part 2” and “I Was On a Boat That Day”.

Ottawa is on a roll with country shows since live music has returned, let’s hope it continues into 2023 as we have upcoming shows from Thomas Rhett and Lee Brice to look forward to at the Canadian Tire Centre as well as a number of smaller shows at the Bronson Centre and other venues around the city. By the reception on Friday night it’s safe to say that country music is alive and well in the Nation’s Capital.

Remaining Canadian dates for this tour include stops in London, Ontario tomorrow night before it continues in Western Canada on Feb 28 with stops in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge, Regina and Winnipeg. For tickets visit: https://tour.weareolddominion.com/

If you want to listen to music from the show we created a playlist featuring the setlist from all four acts. You can check it out below:

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