Live music coming back to Lethbridge

By Al Beeber on June 4, 2021.

Herald file photo by Ian Martens - The Glorious Sons perform during a past year's Whoop-Up Days.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

The Enmax Centre is ready to celebrate the loosening of COVID restrictions in a glorious way – with a concert by Canadian rockers, The Glorious Sons.
While the show isn’t scheduled until February 3, tickets go on sale today.
The Unfinished Business Tour, which features opening act JJ Wilde, is being staged by AEG Presents/Concerts West in partnership with Lethbridge promoter Ron Sakamoto who is making a return to the rock ‘n roll business.
Sakamoto, who started his promotion business with rock acts, was approached by longtime colleague Mark Norman of AEG to get involved and he couldn’t say no.
“We used to do shows together and now he’s working for AEG in Los Angeles and so he just asked me.
“They want me to get back into the business strong and I don’t know, I was kind of wanting to retire a bit but they won’t let me,” laughed Sakamoto Thursday.
“So I guess I keep going until the good lord says stop.”
“Back when I started, which was around 60 years ago, country wasn’t cool, we just had rock shows, we had rock and roll dances. “It was the era of big rock acts like Elvis and the Rolling Stones,” said Sakamoto, who was the first promoter to bring KISS to Canada back in 1973.
“I brought the Doobie Brothers to Lethbridge when they were in their prime,” he recalled.
“People thought ‘you can’t bring the Doobie Brothers here and I said why not? So I booked ’em.”
He also promoted the Bee Gees cross-country tour with Heart back in 1975.
Lethbridge wasn’t even on the tour schedule but Sakamoto convinced Bee Gees manager Robert Stigwood, who’d flown to Calgary from London to let him stage a show here and it sold out.
“Bee Gees sold out four or five times in Calgary; it was phenomenal. . .they let me bring them to Lethbridge because I lived here. They said why and I said because this is where I live.”
With pandemic restrictions lifting, “we’re booking up a storm,” said Sakamoto, with all dates except for some Calgary Stampede performances, slated for next year.
Sakamoto is also organizing a 50-city tour of Canada with country star Johnny Reid that will see the Scottish-born crooner perform between 70 and 80 shows. He will also be staging a tour for Canadian favourites Washboard Union.
And Sakamoto has American country stars Old Dominion slated for a cross-country tour in September and October of 2022.
Washboard Union, Nice Horse and Bobby Wills are all scheduled to perform at the Stampede in June,” said Sakamoto.
The lifting of restrictions, said Sakamoto, is good for the entire entertainment industry.
“The bands, the bookers, the stage hands, the electricians, there is a whole industry and it’s a big relief because they weren’t working. Some of them guys had to get jobs, that were production managers, were working at Walmart just to make ends meet.”
“It’s been very tough for them. I’ve been very fortunate because my companies didn’t lay off anybody. We paid them full on. I’m very fortunate I have no debt and it’s been really hard on some of the other agencies. As a matter of fact, a lot of them are going to fold or have folded and a lot of other companies have to because they just couldn’t carry the debt load.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my lifetime and I hope I never see it again. It’s not just my business, it’s restaurants, look at how many have folded across the nation.. . .
“We’re gearing to go forward and my agencies, which have 23 artists, we are booking them now for ’22 and we have a cross Canada tour booked for Washboard Union…and other artists of course but we’re just starting now because we didn’t know. The theatres didn’t even know when they could open.”
“I’m really happy to see it breaking loose. At least we’re booking buildings and we’re booking artists and hopefully it’ll start but we don’t know for sure right?”

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