Riverthieves - Song for a winter's night (LIGHTFOOT)
Latest News
It has been a very busy few months since our last Riverthieves letter to our community of friends. Although our last public show was in PEI in August, I assure you that we have been very busy!
Devon is well, happily rejigging his life in Brisbane, Australia with Kathy. He sends love and best wishes. (But probably not this weekend as he is moving into his new house and that is bound to make a man grumpy!) Javier, also; he has finished his second-year mid-terms in Halifax at Dal’s Fountain School of Performing Arts and will be getting ready for his finals now. We are looking forward to having him back in the line-up for two Christmas shows.
For the rest of us, we have been making some adjustments to life after Devon. Our first challenge after the summer break was to find a new home for the band when the hangar at the Carp Airport was sold. We had many happy memories of that space where we wrote, recorded and rehearsed the new material for our Soldier album. So we were relieved and thrilled when Mike Harvey provided us with a beautiful new rehearsal space in Richmond, Ontario. For the last few weeks, we have been busy there, re-arranging our songs and setlists.
We had a chance to test-drive the new Riverthieves at a Hurricane Relief benefit put on by the rugby community at the start of November and, with three more seasonal events between now and New Years, the Riverthieves will be well-rehearsed for our 2020 public offerings.
While details are still being hammered out for our 2020 gigging schedule, we can announce in advance that the Almonte Celtfest will be hosting us for a St Patrick’s Day concert at the beautiful, Old Town Hall in Almonte, Ontario on 14 March. We are thrilled that local fiddle band, Cratur, will be opening the show. The other date to save is 02 May when Riverthieves will be playing under the glass dome at the Crystal Palace in Perth, Ontario!
We have many more shows to be announced in the new year, and we do promise to get back to Toronto, Quebec, and PEI in 2020.
In the meantime, we have been growing our social media presence and I’m proud to note that we quadrupled our followers and engagements on Facebook in the month of November. Thank you for that.
Riverthieves is also getting serious about video! Partnering with a team from Algonquin College, led by Lindsay Gerro and Raienkonnis Edwards, we shot and produced a full-on, short movie to accompany our original song, “Mats Sundin’s Tears.” It is beautiful and we can’t wait to get it on the web. It was due for release over the Remembrance Day weekend, but for those familiar with the lyrics, you will understand why we have postponed it! Look for that one in January when we hope to start shooting our second video with Lindsay and “Goonies”.
In the meantime, by way of a holiday gift, we have recorded and shot a version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Song for a Winter’s Night” which will be released early in December. Please help us out by liking, commenting, promoting, sharing and reposting those videos when you see them.
In this quiet cesura between Fall and Winter, Thanksgiving and Christmas, the fellows in the band and the good folks who support us, wish to take a moment to thank everyone for making it easier to share live music. We know that there is no show without an audience and we are very grateful for all the good people who support live music in their communities.
"Song for a Winter's Night" video shoot.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Riverthieves and Algonquin College Students Team Up to Create “Mats Sundin’s Tears” Official Music Video
Ottawa, Ontario (30 May 2019) – A film crew from Algonquin College’s School of Media and Design have teamed up with Eastern Ontario Alt-Folk Band, the Riverthieves, to produce the first official music video from the group’s 2018 album Soldier.
“We were very excited at the prospect of working with a proper film crew and were very impressed by the gear and the level of organization,” said vocalist, Chris Knowles. “It is always super cool to work with artists from outside your own craft.”
Producers Lindsay Gerro and Raienkonnis Edwards developed the video concept, which roughly follows the song’s lyrical telling of the night Mats Sundin scored his remarkable 500th career goal through the eyes of a viewer watching from home and another watching from his FOB in Afghanistan.
“We certainly didn’t have the budget to shoot on location,” jokes Gerro who also directed the project, “so there was no way we could shoot the story in a literal way; but we did manage to recreate enough of the elements artistically that the story arc and the spirit of the song are preserved. What was important to us was to make sure the essence of the song was captured; the way that hockey can be a unifying experience for Canadians anywhere at any time, while simultaneously paying homage to the sacrifices that were made during that fateful day in October, 2009.”
The video was shot in a single day in two locations, on a farm near Perth and then at the Carp Airport later that night.
“It was a strangely exhausting but wonderful day,” Chris Knowles reflected. “We just had to do what we were told; the film crew had to make all the decisions.”
Fans will have to wait to see the final product.
“Raienkonnis will have to assemble all the footage and sync the sound,” Explains Gerro. “Once we have the film assembled there’s still quite a bit of work to be done in post production. It takes time to make it right.”
The video will be released jointly in January 2020.
Contact: Finley Mullally, info@riverthieves.com
- 30 -
Photos by: Patrycja Maksalon