Sunday night my friend Leo and I made our way to downtown Edmonton to see Leeroy Stagger and The Wildflowers play at Sir Winston Churchill Park as part of The Works Festival.
The Works Festival is a festival held in Edmonton in every summer, which is now in its 26th year. It is a free festival celebrating and showing off artists and arts in all kinds of forms, from music to digital arts,visual arts and many more. Every night during the festival they have bands play at the park.
When I heard Leeroy Stagger was playing, i was allover that. This was my second time seeing him perform in concert. Leeroy is a singer-songwriter who reminds me of some classic artists like Springsteen,Neil Young,Steve Earle and Tom Petty he plays a very blue collar type of rock n' roll with great lyrics, especially when he performs with his band The Wildflowers.
While this show was a very small turn out for him, my guess is that there wasn't more then 50 people there. He nonetheless put on a great 45 minute set. The small crowd didn't seem to bother him any, he even went on to say what a great festival it was praising it for how it introduces people to many new arts and artists. i think most band would have just mailed it in and put on a half ass show. Not Leeroy Stagger, he played like he was performing to a full stadium, and kudos to him for doing that. I am sure he won over a few new fans. I know Leo liked him and I ran in to an old friend of mine (Tim) at the show, that had never heard of Leeroy before, but left the show very impressed and thanked me for telling him to stick around and check this band out. It's a shame that there were so few people there, but after a long weekend and it being a Sunday night, not really surprised that there weren't many people. Still a good show though.
Leeroy Stagger is a musician from B.C. but now based in Lethbridge, Alberta that has I think 8 albums out including his latest one "Little Victories" on Rebeltone Records. I picked up this album after his set and got the chance to speak with Leeroy. I have listened to the album a few times and highly recommend picking it up. All of his albums are good, some are just solo acoustic albums, where he is more a folk singer then a rock n' roll band, but still very good stuff. The show I saw Sunday night, I liked way more then the first time I saw him. He was really rockin' it out, some points in the show really reminded me of Neil Young and Steve Earle, true gritty rock n' roll. All and all a great show and good times, and for free to boot. Good times!!!
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