They’re rare, but every once in a while you meet someone and the experience, however brief, has a profound impact.
On Saturday July 1st I was very excited that one of my favourite musicians was performing in my hometown. I don’t live in a city where live music is celebrated as much as it is in larger cities, so for anyone of any sort of notable success to be performing here is in and of itself a big treat, especially if they’re not actually from here as is the case with Vaughan’s Canada Day headlining act Sam Roberts Band who come from Montreal, Quebec.
I started listening to Sam’s music some odd 20-years ago in 2002. An online friend of mine, Michelle from Mississauga, would absolutely rave about him. By the time she told me about him, she’d already seen him live and was the first person to gush on about how great of a performer he was.
Around this time he was becoming more popular on mainstream radio and TV – music videos were still a big thing and I can remember his face often jumping into view on MuchMusic. For a while, like with a lot of my favourite bands, there was some of his music I didn’t quite get yet or that didn’t lure me in the way others would. I was a pretty hyperactive kid then and needed music to match, so for a long while my favourite track of his was “Don’t Walk Away Eilleen,” while everyone else was all about “Brother Down”.
Nonetheless I became an early fan and would follow along with the singles and album as they came out – music was a major talking point between Michelle and I so it really was unavoidable. Through her I learned about loads of other great music acts that weren’t gaining the same type of popularity within my own music circle in Vaughan, like Broken Social Scene, Feist, among others.
In my mid-late teens I’d heard for the first time about Sam Roberts playing the Kee to Bala, a venue that had no notable interest or history to me until my dad started to go see shows there. Bala, Ontario is about an hour’s drive from my family’s cottage in Muskoka just south of Huntsville.
“Saw this band last night. Sam Roberts. You heard of him?” my dad asked.
“Yeah, I’ve heard of him.”
“Great band. Really great show. When you turn 19 you’ll have to go see him in Bala if he’s playing there.”
My dad loves the Kee to Bala. If you’ve been, you understand why without me saying much more. If you haven’t, you just have to go sometime – I’ll never be able to do it justice.
My dad would go on for a few more years catching Sam Roberts band at the Kee to Bala and my sister would begin joining him in the tradition. She’d rave about the show just as much and every summer they’d leave me hanging by saying, “when you turn 19, you’ll have to go.”
Eventually of course, I did turn 19. And I got tickets to my first Sam Roberts show, now having been a fan for some 7 or so years and hearing for a number of those how great the show is, I was excited. It was also my first time at the Kee to Bala which really is a cool space.
My family have had a cottage in Muskoka for as long as I’ve been alive so to be in a cottage-atmosphere’s is among where I’m the most comfortable. I love the smell of a burning fire and the calmness of the lake at night; it’s one of the only places you can truly find peace.
But it’s also one of those places you’ll find the most absurd and rowdy parties, as would be the case in the couple of years that I’d join my sister or dad on that hour drive out to the Kee to Bala to watch Sam play.
Big open wood floor, wrap-around balcony above and one of the tallest stages I’ve ever seen. When I stand at the bottom of it, I get swallowed up by the shadow of the stage. I’m not sure if I can even reach the base of its floor from there. A major highlight of the venue? The outdoor patio that overlooks Lake Muskoka. The only venue that comes close to having a cool outdoor patio like this in Toronto is the former Sound Academy/The Docks out by Cherry Beach. I’m sure it has another name by now.
Shuttle buses bring in fans from all over the place to this show that Sam plays just about every Labour Day weekend here. The help of the shuttles means that by the time most fans arrive, they’re already a little worse for wear from booze, most of them undoubtedly have been drinking all day. It is the Muskoka way.
By 19, I was already well enthroned into the same party style. I could drink beers for hours and keep a relatively level head about myself, though I’m certain I was way more obnoxious than I thought I was then. At the Kee, it’s easy to get sucked in and find yourself going back to the bar several times through Sam’s set.
I’d be lying if I said I remembered everything about the shows I’d been to.
But the parts I did remember probably came from that first show I saw at 19, hanging with my dad and sister and taking it all in. Turns out they were right, they were one of the best live bands I’d ever seen with an incredible level of energy I wasn’t used to seeing. From that tall stage, Sam looks like a giant with a huge personality to match. The kind of guy you’d love to get a beer with and hang out around a campfire.
People would say that about Sam, that he was just as much a partier as any of the sloppy folks on the Kee floor and that he’d stay up for hours after drinking with them if the mood struck him. Whether that’s true or not, who can say, but regardless to my knowledge I’ve never heard anyone say a bad thing about him.
One of the cool things the band does live that I hadn’t seen much of yet in the concerts I’d been to is just jam out for a period of time, just wailing away on their guitars and drums in long extended stretches, keeping the vibe upbeat and as lively as can be. That was always a highlight for me – I love watching bands do that and do it as well as these guys did. Mind you, I probably couldn’t stand it if that’s all the band did for the entire set, but when it’s well timed from the bridge of an otherwise great rock track, you can really lose yourself in it with them.
I don’t think it was until the 2nd or 3rd time I saw the bad live that Sam ended the night by taking a moment to reach down off that huge stage and quickly slap some high-fives to everyone immediately below.
Honestly it’s not the best view of the show to stand where they were – kind of like being front row in a movie theater with your neck craned and missing parts of the screen, but you can’t help but be a little jealous of those high fives when you see them happen and I imagine for a lot of them, as it would be for me, well worth the wait.
I didn’t make a point of seeing Sam every year like my sister would try to. I quickly grew tired of the drive even though I wasn’t the one behind the wheel and partying like I would there was exhausting. I’d prefer instead to make a fire overlooking Lake of Bays where our cottage was and putting Sam’s CD’s on there instead and I think it was during those long and equally late nights that I really grew to appreciate his songwriting and the production of the songs on the records.
When the pandemic hit and for the first time in my memory I’d heard that Sam wasn’t going to play the Kee, I was disappointed. I’d felt a little overdue for one of their shows, but given the circumstances I obviously understood the decision.
I’d also just begun writing new original music of my own again and I’d find myself thinking about these experiences I’ve just shared with you. Somewhere in early 2020, inspired by wanting to write a very quintessentially Canadian pop song, I penned a song called “Over Before It Starts”.
The song is about all the things – the simple joys of driving out to more remote parts of Ontario where you can relax by a lake or a fire, listen to great music and spend quality time with people you love. Inspired in part by my sister’s unrelenting passion for being the first at the cottage and the last to leave at the end of the summer, my father’s annoying tendency to remind us how short summer is here in Canada by proclaiming that it only ever feels like it’s a couple days long and is effectively, ‘over before it ever starts’, and the eager spirit embodied by my own friends and I who’d sometimes make the drive up just to make the drive up, making a pit stop at Weber’s for a burger (they have the best Cajun salt seasoning on their fries) and the Dorset fire tower before bringing ourselves back to the boring suburbs, our jobs or school and otherwise.
In the chorus I penned a short nod to Sam and the Kee because I’ve yet to experience a venue and show that is quite like the ones he puts on there.
I put out the song, a quick little demo of it anyway, that Labour day weekend. We may not have been able to go to the Kee to see him play in 2020, but it’s hard not to think about Sam and the band on this holiday weekend every year now.
So now, back to Canada Day where we are now by all accounts as post-pandemic as we could be and life is returning to some semblance of normalcy for most of us and I, still a little amazed that after all these years of listening and after all those drives to the Kee, Sam would be in my hometown.
The park he was playing in is Boyd Conservation Park which I visit frequently. I cut through my subdivision into an estate neighborhood which has a pathway through a forest that takes you directly into the park – it doesn’t take me very long to get to at all and it’s the closest thing I have that reminds me of being up north.
I went early to spend the day enjoying the nice weather and to take in the fact that Vaughan was actually doing something pretty cool for once. I grew up here and have never been to an event like this – I’m now in my 30’s. It felt a little overdue.
Needless to say the atmosphere at this show was not quite the same as Kee to Bala. For one, I don’t drink anymore, so there were no pre-show beers in the forest or by the water and no desire to hole up in the beer tent before the set. The crowd was mostly families, a wide range of ages given the celebration, as opposed to hoards of sweaty, sun-washed loud drunks with balancing issues. There would be no beer spilt onto a sticky floor and no fights breaking out or any stumbles down to the Kee’s stairs.
As I took my place just in front of the barrier – the best spot to watch this show with a stage a few feet ahead of you and not towering over your head – some young girls behind me excitedly remarked that it was their first concert ever.
“Well they sure picked a great band to see,” I thought to myself.
I’d spent the day entirely myself which is something I’ve grown to appreciate more and more since deciding to stop drinking in 2020. It was a bit of a bummer at first when I started to venture out alone, so used to being with friends or family for these types of things, but there is a certain freedom you get by being at shows by yourself that I’ve really come to enjoy and a certain level of attention you’re able to give wholly to the band performing that you’re just not able to give when you’re a little inebriated or distracted by your friends.
While still waiting for show time, I got a message from my sister who I’d told about the show. She’d just arrived with a friend of hers and made her way to the beer tent; I’d felt a certain sense of relief when I considered they might spend the entire show watching from over there.
It’s not that I didn’t want to enjoy the show with them as we’d done many times before, but I’d worried a little they’d take away from my experience. It’s a sort of silly worry that is not exactly founded in anything other than the fact that I’m now so used to being on my own.
The show began and they were nowhere to be found. A couple songs in they’d tap on my shoulder, “found you!”, as though I would’ve been anywhere else.
I quickly mouthed a hello but turned my attention back to the band. Before this day, I’d never watched Sam perform with such clarity and I was enthralled. The band sounded great as ever and I was much closer than I’d ever been able to be at the Kee. Plus I wasn’t getting jostled around by swaying fans or getting my ears wrecked by the overly loud blasts from the live speakers.
My sister has a bit of a big personality and was excitedly telling her friend about the band, seeing them before, and noticing that she’d recognized a handful of people working the show. One she’d met at the Kee was the photographer for the event and others that’d helped organize were old school mates. Vaughan, while a large community, is one of those that often feels very small. I don’t normally mind at all when people talk through shows here and there but I was thankful when her friend and her moved a little further away to get themselves a better view; I just didn’t care for the extra details. The nice part of the Kee show, I suppose and most rock shows, is you can’t usually hear people over the band anyway. Here, outside at Boyd park, you could hear a lot – fortunately everyone quickly became respectful of that.
I enjoyed the rest of the show in my own quiet contemplation. I love watching what everyone does, how they move, their little antics and otherwise. As a performer myself it’s like you always spend a little bit of every show you watch trying to learn something new that catches your attention so that you can maybe apply it to your own in some way, but mostly I was just enjoying the songs. They were really on point through the whole set and chose a great selection of songs old and new. Somewhere near the middle of the show Sam stopped to reflect on the pandemic and what had brought them to Vaughan today. They’d actually done a livestream event back in 2020 that was recorded here which I didn’t even know about (hey, it’s really hard to keep up with all this stuff) so they had a connection to Vaughan that I wasn’t at all aware of. I really appreciated the sincerity and genuine nature of his short speech – it was something he’d never done at the Kee and I was feeling myself growing an entire new appreciation for him and his music by being in the audience that day.
During “Brother Down” or just to the end of it, the song I didn’t quite get at first but had grown to love over the years listening to it by the lake, the band went off on their usual jam sequence and to my surprise, Sam hopped off the front of the stage and disappeared.
As it turns out Sam is not quite as giant as the Kee would have you believe. Eventually someone caught his head to the far right of the audience – he was beginning to make his way around the those that stood at the front barrier and offer autographs and photos and… and this is the part that really amazed me – he began just having casual conversations with everyone that wanted to speak to him.
The band played on.
He did this for quite some time and I found myself periodically looking over to catch his progress along the rail, realizing that this might be my opportunity to finally get one of those coveted high fives. It was amazing really to watch him savour each moment with each fan. You wanted a hug? You got it. You wanted a high five? Here you go. Autograph? Where do I sign? Photo? Does this look okay? You could feel his energy radiating with each unique experience he offered those fans that day.
The band kept pulling my attention back but as Sam approached our end of the fence, I took my shot and reached out my hand over the short person who stood in front of me.
It should have been awkward for my right hand to clasp his left the way it did, but they fit and Sam gave it a little squeeze as he looked over at me. That energy that I’d felt from watching him now suddenly seeping into my own hand.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a surge of emotion in that moment that I really was not expecting. It was all gratitude.
He completed the railing and then ran back to the stage, completing the song and then a few more before exiting – then returning (thankfully) for a 3-song encore. The event was supposed to end at 8PM but Sam and the band played on til about 8:40. Frankly I’m not sure he’s capable of only performing for an hour.
As the encore ended and people began to filter out, I found my sister and her friend again. They’d had a great time, as did I, and then we noticed Sam was back at the railing, continuing his conversations and photos for those that lingered behind.
To think that I could then have the opportunity to actually speak to Sam after a show that had already exceeded my expectations and uniquely changed the entire way I view Sam himself – well I was stoked.
My sister spouted off something to the effect of, “Jaimee probably wants to head home, she’s been here all day, but I want to get a photo,” and I rolled my eyes internally.
There is something I’ve learned over the years and it’s become only more prominent in recent ones, that people – even those that arguably should be the closest to you or know you better than most, will have their own opinions of you regardless of what might be fact or has been displayed. My sister in this moment had reminded me how little she knows about me, my interests and what would constitute a really special moment for me personally because she was so excited about her own.
I suddenly felt justified in the relief I’d felt when they’d found a new place to stand in front of that stage.
As the line of people slowly filtered out I tried to focus less on the mild frustration caused by my sister and more on what I might say to Sam if we got to the top of the line before security, who were already trying to get us all out of the park, forced this impromptu meet and greet down.
Sam was taking his time just as he had done during the jam, allowing people to speak as freely as they felt they wanted to, having genuine conversations with them and offering them his full attention. I was impressed – this man is a saint and exactly the type of musician that inspires me every day to do a little better.
I’d never really considered a reality where I’d have the opportunity to speak to Sam and the closer I got the less sure I was becoming. I’d love to just talk about music with him, I bet he’s got some great recommendations. As I tend to do in these situations, for better or for worse I didn’t think too deeply about it and just thought I’d allow what comes to my head to come out when I got there.
I let my sister and her friend go first – their conversation was no doubt going to be different than mine and I didn’t want to get lumped in with it.
While I don’t expect my sister to understand why this chance meeting of Sam and I had a different sort of gravitational pull for me, I am not so daft as to recognize when a similar moment is important to someone else for their own reasons. I was really happy, actually, that she also finally had a chance to meet him and say hello after seeing him perform so many times. I don’t think my sister has seen any artist live as much as she’s seen Sam – she doesn’t go to that many concerts.
She talked to him about the Kee as I knew she would and they bantered a bit about how different those shows are, and she mentioned how she was going to see him again this fall for the usual Labour Day gig. I took their photo and made sure it was a pretty good one (else Id hear about it forever), and then it was my turn.
I was keenly aware that there was still a line behind me or 10 people or so and security would be back around soon so, as usual I didn’t want to take up too much time. I spilled out a bit about how great Sam was and how inspirational he and his music had been to me and more than once I said thanks not just for him taking a moment to speak to me but all the people before and after me that had waited. This to me is always such a special moment with an artist and I can’t express enough how rare it is for bands to do this. While speaking to him I couldn’t help but notice how well he was keeping eye contact and really made you feel like he was listening to every word in absolutely no hurry. He also happens to have the most remarkable blue eyes – they’re difficult to want to turn away from.
If I had been a little nervous before, that quickly washed away. In my light gushing I mentioned I’d written a song that mentioned him. I don’t know if that’s a weird thing for an artist to hear – when I try to place myself in their own shoes about it, I imagine I’d be thrilled to hear someone had done the same for me, but I worry that it comes across as weird when it’s the other way around. Sam was kind as ever about it, said he’d like to hear it and he was sure there was some way to get it to him. I told him I have to fix the recording (and I listened to the original demo today guys and I absolutely do have to fix the recording) but would try to send it out to him when it was done. And then as we both seemed aware that we should wrap up the conversation so that the others behind me could have their time, he asked if I was going to go to the Kee this year with my sister.
I kind of laughed and said I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to make it. When he asked why, I grinned and said I didn’t really have a great excuse. There are a lot of reasons why I don’t make it up north to the cottage – I actually haven’t been to my own in a couple years and while I’d love to see Sam up on that Bala stage again sometime, seeing him perform this little Vaughan stage today somehow was more special than the Kee could ever be.
He left me with a small bit of wisdom that seemed to absolve me of the tinge of guilt I felt when I admitted I wouldn’t be at the show, “as a musician, you don’t need to explain your reasons for why you can’t make it to something like that,” in much more eloquent words.
And in that moment I felt entirely understood.
When I first started working at recording studios I’d often struggled with that. I’d skip birthdays, events, concerts, all sort of things, because I’d have the opportunity to work in the studio instead. When you do that long enough, you start to wonder if you’re missing out on things and it feels a little selfish every time. People get upset, think you’re avoiding them or that you don’t care about them. Eventually that guilt is part of what pulled me away from music for a long time and now, having returned to it and focusing primarily on myself and my own original music now, I occasionally feel those same bits of guilt, but the pull to continue the work I’m doing is far stronger than it was back then.
I appreciate Sam immensely for saying it – he is the first person who ever has and it made me feel in some way, equal.
I took a quick photo with Sam, thanks to my sister who took the shot so that I didn’t have to T-Rex arm the moment which usually leaves me with a photo I’m unhappy with and began to walk out the park with them to their car waiting in one of the farthest lots, though I would have been just as happy to walk back through the forest and take the same route I did to come in.
As we walked to the lot and I quietly reflected on the day, out of the forest that encases the road shot some small beams of yellow light.
Fireflies.
We used to see fireflies all the time up north when I was a kid, hoards of them lighting up the roads. This was the first time I’d seen them since I was probably 13 or so. We used to think they were magic.
If I could’ve put the experience of seeing and meeting Sam into some sort of visual metaphors, well that was it right there; Dozens of little fireflies emitting tiny beams of light for our trip home.
Like magic.
I posted two videos from Sam’s Canada Day set on my Instagram page, you can check those out here:
That old demo of “Over Before It Starts” or some variation of it is probably poking around one of my channels but, I do intend on re-recording it very soon.
I’ll post about it when it’s complete, so hang tight.
In the meantime here’s an old acoustic cover I tried of “Them Kids” from last year.
Neither Could Dylan 
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