By Stephen Cooke – Entertainment Reporter
Last week we started up in Sydney, so this time, let’s cast our eyes to the other end of the region this column roughly covers, and take a look at one of the province’s most rustic live venues.
The Round Barn, located appropriately enough in Old Barns, just outside of Truro, has been presenting shows and serving as a rentable event venue for a few years now. In early June it’s kicking things up a notch by presenting two nights of some of Nova Scotia’s finest musicians for a special taping for Bell Fibe TV1.
This gorgeous space on the Blois Family Farm, built in 1886, is one of only two old wooden round barns left in the province, and as it turns out, its shape and construction make it a great concert site acoustically.
You can see for yourself on Friday, June 6, when the Live From the Round Barn series presents acclaimed songwriter Alana Yorke — who released her latest album Destroyer in the aftermath of recovering from a stroke in 2022 — and Champagne Weather, the delightful duo configuration of Brookfield-based songwriters James Hill and Anne Janelle, who are also accomplished players on ukulele and cello, respectively.
Then, on Saturday, June 7, it’s a double-barrelled dose of two Juno Award-winners who couldn’t be more differently musically, but equally alike in their ability to please audiences: banjo-toting balladeer Old Man Luedecke and blues-belting guitar-slinger Garrett Mason.
This show gets an early mention because it appears tickets are going fast and may even be gone by the time you read this, but we had to give it the old college try. Tickets are on sale at sidedooraccess.com (you may have to do a search for “Round Barn” or the name of the artists), and you can find out more about the venue itself at roundbarnfarm.ca.
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At the other end of the province, as well as the musical spectrum, Sydney hosts the Wild Lots celebration of alternative art and culture from Thursday, May 29 to Saturday, May 31. Inspired by events like Halifax’s Everyseeker (formerly OBEY Convention), the three-day gathering is billed as an “Event + Object series of contemporary sound + visions” with “Staged dreams, wild lots.”
In short, expect the unexpected, starting on Thursday at the Eltuek Arts Centre (the former Holy Angels Convent at 170 George St.) with a multi-speaker composition titled The Bardo Is the Park Is the Bardo, from 5 to 7 p.m., an immersive sound project that can also be experienced on Friday from 2 to 4 p.m.
On Friday night at 7 p.m., Wild Lots presents Home TV I, and additional video works by Montreal-based artist Alex Apostolidis, followed by a Q&A with the artist in the Eltuek Arts Centre’s Cafe Marie. A production of iWant2BeOnTv, the videos are a playful, satirical look back at the era of pre-streaming television, reenvisioned through an LGBTQ+ lens, with pointed commentary about gender and identity, production and labour.
Wild Lots wraps up on Saturday with an afternoon gathering at Cafe Marie incorporating a pop-up zine, vintage clothing, record and tape shop, and an all-ages evening show at Doktor Lukes. The Noise & Experimental Sounds Exhibition runs from 7:30 to 10 p.m. with industrial music veteran Art Damage (Phycus), Kate Rissiek, MKQ, Clang, Bleach Lake, Miox and Rhoda.
As you might expect, it will be weird, wired, wonderful and, well, wild. Most events are $10 or PWYC, and further updates and schedule details will be posted on the Wild Lots Instagram and Facebook pages.