Canadian country singer, Terri Clark, proved herself to be a
top-notch entertainer when she played at the Interior Savings Centre last
Friday(November 19th 2010). The coliseum was only half
full, and the floor was filled with chairs, dampening the atmosphere, but Terri
Clark exuded energy and charisma on stage, putting on an entertaining
performance.
Clark grew up in Medicine Hat,
Alberta before moving down to Nashville to pursue music. She has had a fairly successful career:
two of her albums have gone platinum in both Canada and the United States, and
she has had her fair share of top ten country hits.
Despite her success she has felt
unsatisfied with her past career and music. “I wasn’t connecting with what people wanted me to record. It
felt like I was on an assembly line: nothing new, nothing fresh or true to me –
and it seemed like the fire was going out,” a quote from her website said. With this in mind, she broke from her
label and independently produced and released her new album, The Long Way Home. The album has a definite mainstream
country music sound, but it has grown in both complexity and maturity.
Having little experience with country
music, I was curious to check out Clark’s show. Despite her music not being of my particular taste, I was
pleasantly surprised by the vigor of her live performance. Switching
between sharing the stage with a backing band and appearing with just her
acoustic guitar, she also gave her band ample time to display their own
talents. Through most of the
performance she adlibbed lines and responded to the crowd.
Her new material was heavily
featured in the concert but that didn’t stop her from playing her old hits,
such as Poor, Poor Pitiful Me, which seemed to get the best response from the
appreciative crowd.
The main problem with the show
didn’t have anything to do with Clark or her band at all–the biggest problem
was the placement of chairs on the floor.
While Terri Clark was doing her best to get people to dance and sing
along, the chairs made it difficult for crowd to move around or work up much
energy. Behind the chairs, quite a ways away from the stage, was an
open area where a few couples had moved from their seats to dance and
two-step.
Despite this downfall and a
partially empty coliseum, Clark seemed genuinely excited to be performing in
Kamloops. The crowd also responded
warmly and enthusiastically to her.
When she left the stage the first
time, the applause was surprisingly loud for the size of the audience. When she returned for the encore she
blasted through a rocking cover of Folsom Prison Blues that featured both a
drum and a bass solo. She finished
the night with a more toned down version of If You Want Fire from her new album
before finishing her set.
Clark seems to be one of those
performers who is a genuine
pleasure to watch live whether you are a fan or not, as she not only comes
across as sincere but is entertaining and exciting to watch.
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