24 — Friday, June 25, 1999 -- North Shore News Blue Rodeo pack a picni to the Plaza @ Stardust Picnic with Blue Rodeo, Great Big Sea, Neko Case, Ron Sexsmith, Guster and Luther Wright & the Wrongs. Plaza of Nations, Vancouver. Thurs. July 1, 2 p.m. Tickets $35 at Ticketmaster. Bot Mackin News Reporter BLUE Rodeo’s Stardust Picnic is goiig down- town to the Plaza of Nations. C The local stop for the Toronto band’s outdoor roadshow was supposed to be on Canada Day near Canada Way at Deer Lake Park in Burnaby. It’s still happening July 1. And despite the move, Blue Rodco’s co-ieader Jim Cuddy promises the afternoon and evening music festival will be no less a picnic or party. “Pm definitely disappointed, the Deer Lake site was prob- lematic from the beginning,” Cuddy said in a phone interview from Daniel Lanois’ Kingsway studio in New Orleans. “It’s very beautiful, but it’s also not really a facility. Once (ticket sales) didn’t go gangbusters out there, we had to move it downtown.” The Stardust Picnic, which also includes Great Big Sea, Neko Case, Ron Sexsmith, Guster and Luther Wright and the Wrongs, is making its first cross-country tour this suramer. It began in 1997 as a one-day event at Toronto’s Fort York. Last year it spread to Ortawa and Montreal. This year. it’s national, partly because the Tragically Hip is delaying its Another Roadside Attraction tour until next summer. “We wanted to have more control over the size and charac- ter of our summer show in Toronto,” Cuddy said. “Summer touring is the most entertaining touring for us, to have a little control over it and choose the acts we want to play with is kind of a bonus.” Minor league baseball parks, including Vancouver's Nat Bailey Stadium, were preferred venues for the tour. The Nat's last concert was Sarah McLachlan’s first Lilith Fair in 1996 and it’s not fikely to see another show until area residents become tolerant of live, loud music again. Venues on the North Shore were briefly examined before the Burnaby park _ was chesen. ae: Photo Glen Erikson photo Denise Grant BLUE Rodeo’s Bazil Donovan (left), Kim Oeschamps, Jim Cuddy, Glenn Milchem, Greg Keelor and James Gray are headlining the Stardust Picnic on Canada Day at the Plaza of Nations. “We really tried to get Grouse Mountain or Cypress Bowl, those places would be perfect to do it. We'll work on that again. That’s the kind of place that would be perfect for this kind of festival. It’s not too big, you don’t have to have park- ing for 10,000 to 20,000 people.” The show goes rain or shine wherever it plays. But if there are showers instead of stardust, the Plaza of Nations’ glass ceil- ing will be useful. The cight-city tour begins today in Kingston, Ont. and functions in part as 2 vehicle to promote Blue Rodeo’s Just Like A Vacation double live album. It’s a tongue-in-cheek title, Cuddy says, copped from the band’s song “Florida.” “There is an element to this carcer that is kind of recre- ational. It doesn’t always feel like work. What we're producing is music and music is people’s recreation. Yes it’s been hours and days and months in tour buses, and crappy food and being away from home. That side of it is horrible. You can’t underes- timate how damaging that is to you. I think the title is a good little piece of irony.” The 22 songs on Just Like A Vacation span the band’s 14- year career and were recorded during the 1997-98 rour. Eight selections were captured during shows in Stratford, Ont. One track, “Bad Timing”, was culled from Blue Rodeo’s appear- ance at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre in Vancouver. Highlights from Just Like A Vacation are available for “test drive” on Blue Rodeo’s Web site in the controversial MP3 audio compression format. “The whole Internet has become very important for us as we've toured less, especially as we've toured less in the U.S. It’s allowed us to stay in touch with people that are inclined to stay in touch with us,” Cuddy said. “Pirating and copyright infringement has been going on forever. There’s not much point in fighting that, you just have to accept that it’s going to happen. Ultimately you want your music to get out there, you don’t want to have your living threatened because of it, but you want people to have your music. That's the end result.” Previews of songs from the band’s forthcoming cighth stu- dio album won't be available via MP3 for months. But you might just catch one or two of the new nuggets at the Stardust Picnic. No fairie luck needed for this ‘Dream’ From page 14 nect directly with his audience and Bottom allows him the latitude to mug deliciously in context. But for some of this production Gaze also finds a naive innocence for Bottom that resonated more of Winnie the Pooh than arrogant brag- gart and if anything gets “big- ger” I hope it is this quality. Gaze is matched by the rest of his motley crew in comic TITANIA (Kirsten Robek) dailies with her long eared fove Bottom (Christopher Gaze). FREE INFORMATION SESSION ON MACULAR DEGENERATION Guest Presentation by: { Dr. Lixin Chungphaisan, 0.D. _| Learn about the leading cause of vision | loss in people over 55, and some of the solutions to help you read and write. Date: Wednesday 7 July 1999 Time: ipm to 4pm ' Location: West Vancouver Seniors’ Centre 695 - 21st Street, West Vancouver For reservation, please call Gene @ 986-7999 appeal and Bellis’ death scene as the unfortunate Thisby is, well, to die for. But director Susanne Gillies Smith retains as tight a hand here as else- where in the play and the mechanical’s jokes do not get out of hand — although it was unfortunate that a blind mem- ber of the audience had Bellis land unexpectedly in his lap Tuesday. Studio 58 grad Courtenay J. Stevens has a pleasingly light touch as Lysander, and the comic “bits” he works with David Mackay (Demetrius) in the pursuit of (and flight from) Sarah May Redmond’s excellent Helena are hilarious. In the fairie world, Alessandro Juliani, despite his youth, lends a regal, brooding quality to Obcron while Stephen Hoimes’ slight, elfin body make us believers in Puck at first sight (although one less sight gag based on the tedious “I go, Oh you haven’t finished speaking, I stay” might have been a better choice.) And I loved Gillies Smith’s simple statements at the opening and closing of the play where fairies bless both the action and the stage that contains it in scenes of ritual sweeping. But this production really doesn’t need fairie fuck, it will succeed on its own terms and if you hope to see it, book early. HN AY NN 26° The Vancouver Canadians, The North Shore a News and BCAA want to thauk all the fans for their support of The Vancouver Canadians. CANADIANS vs MASHVILLE SOUN2S Nionday, June 28th > 7:05 pm a