Sunday night at the Ovintiv Events Centre in Dawson Creek High Valley brought their Small Town Somethin’ tour which was opened by Tim and the Glory Boys. This was by fat the most packed of the 3 recent concerts that took place there (Great Canadian Roadtrip & Aaron Pritchett) and possibly the best. It was interesting to find out that more people travelled from Alberta to Dawson Creek for the show than attendees from Dawson Creek and Fort St. John combined, though this was as close to a home town show as the tour had with Brad being from Le Crete.
The show was opened up by Tim and the Glory Boys who would proceed to play their hits like “Float,” “When You Know You Know” as well as some more religious sounding tracks. Tim had plenty of humor behind the microphone, whether it was playing with people high in the box seats or with the intros for Brenton aka “The First Nation Sensation” and Colin who rocks a great moustache. They got the crowd nice and energized and after their set would go to the lobby and met with fans while selling their merchandize themselves. Sadly they were low of not out of a number of cool items. It was safe to say they made plenty of new fans that night.
Brad and the rest of High Valley hit the stage to big excitement and after a few songs encouraged the fans in the floor seats to get right close to stage. High Valley would play most of their hit songs from the 14-15 years including their current single and tour namesake “Small Town Somethin'” Brad would even mix in some religious numbers and some slower ones as a part of different almost segments of the show. He did a more bluegrass set, as well as did a singer-songwriter little section where he played small amounts of a few songs he had written that were recorded by other artists and some of the background like “Born and Raised” recorded by the Hunter Brothers and “All Night To Figure It Out” recorded by Jade Eagleson that went to #1. Brad a point in the show actually brought up 2 little girls from Grande Prairie who were in the crowd and sang while the one played the guitar, took a photo with them and allowed them to pick out some merch form the stand on him. The kind of moment artists like Tenille Townes had with Shania Twain and Hailey Benedict had with Keith Urban, so there could be a chance that girl becomes a notable name. During the final song of the set before the encore Brad would run off stage and sing in the crowd making his way around the floor section. In the encore Brad would where a gifted Dawson Creek Kodiaks jersey even though he is from Le Crete where they have a NWJHL team now, so he said for the night he was a life long fan of the Dawson Creek team.
The show was amazing from start to finish and the crowd was so into it, more so than the other recent shows I attended in Dawson Creek. It is safe to say High Valley will likely want to return to the Peace again given the attendance and crowd. The merch line when I walked into the arena was that of a Shania Twain or major notable names which was impressive.
Here are some photos from the show:
– Everett
