Blog Archives

With September comes cooler temperatures, the leaves start to change colour and fall from the trees, back to school sales are the big thing at pretty much every retailer and most people are looking back on the summer festival season that was…but in Ottawa there’s always one more big party before we put away our festival shoes and that party, CityFolk Festival, unveiled its 25th Anniversary lineup earlier this morning.

Lets keep this one simple.  I love Country Music!  I really do.  And this morning waking up to the CMAO 2016 Award Nominations was kind of like a kid at Christmas.  As my eyes read through and processed this years nominations I couldn’t help but wonder.  Who will be the BIG Winners next month at the Awards Ceremonies in Markham? Here is the list of Nominations.

After reading through Corey’s top 10 artists to watch in 2016 I started thinking of who I would put in that list. There are definitely similarities between my 10 and Corey’s, as you will see.  2015 has been a big year for Canadian country music from the tour perspective with all the major players hitting the road, Dallas Smith started the year with his hugely successful “Tippin’ Point Tour” featuring Sundy Best and now this fall Dean Brody and Paul Brandt just wrapped up their “Road Trip Tour”, Brett Kissel and Jordan McIntosh are currently on the road with their “Airwaves Tour” and Tebey kicks off his “Three’s A Party Tour” with Jason Blaine and James Otto on Friday in Halifax and to cap off the year Tim Hicks is hitting the road with Cold Creek County and Jason Benoit for their “Get A Little Crazy Tour”.  Notice something missing? Out of all the tours above only the “Road Trip Tour” featured tomatoes as an added ingredient with Lindi Ortega, Jess Moskaluke, Madeline Merlo and Whitney Rose featured throughout the tour.

So let’s take a look at who I think has the greatest chance of breaking out in the coming year, 2016.

2015 been quite a year for Country Music in Ottawa with monster shows from some of country’s biggest hit makers like Luke Bryan, Brantley Gilbert, Keith Urban and Kenny Chesney to name just a few, not to mention some world class performances by some of Canada’s top country stars like Brett Kissel, Tim Hicks and more.

On Monday night two Canadian country music gentleman, Paul Brandt and Dean Brody, brought a true country music performance as their Road Trip Tour rolled into the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa.

The Road Trip tour rolls into Ontario tomorrow night for their first of 7 dates.  With pit stops in Thunder Bay (10th), Sudbury (13th), London (15th) Hamilton (16th), Oshawa (17th), Kingston (18th) & Ottawa (19th) there is plenty opportunity to catch some amazing music this month.  

There’s no denying that the summer of 2015 was an incredible one for live entertainment with stellar line-ups at veteran festivals and even the addition of a few new ones including Way Home, Bestival, Capital Country Fest @ Spencerville Stampede to name just a few. Well hold onto your hats because fall 2015 is going to be even hotter and it all kicks off later this week, here’s our look ahead to some of the hottest events and tours still to come before we say farewell to 2015.

Who doesn’t love a Road Trip? This fall, two of Canada’s favourite guitar-slingers – Dean Brody and Paul Brandt will hit the road. With stops in 22 cities across the country, there’s no question that this is the first co-headlining tour you don’t want to miss!