I really enjoy Fred Eaglesmith and his music so when I got it into my head a few months back that attending one of his concerts was long overdue, I went to his website and found he was playing June 5 near Creemore. Thinking that would be just the thing to kick off the summer music season, I purchased tickets for the concert at the New Farm. The day before we were heading to Creemore I got a press release announcing that another gig has been added to his schedule. Fred Eaglesmith and his band, as well as Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans, are playing 15-minutes away in Harriston this weekend at the Red Neck Games.
Going to a Fred Eaglesmith concert is always an experience. For those of you who don’t know him or his music, I guess he could be described as an alternative country singer/songwriter. The Port Dover resident writes a lot about farms, tractors and trains and, after 30 years in the biz, it seems he is finally being ‘discovered’ by more than the ‘Fredheads’ who follow him around from concert to concert. Alan Jackson recently covered his song “Freight Train” and, awhile back, Toby Keith recorded his song “White Rose”. This past Friday night he was on Letterman – and I think I slipped into ‘Fredhead’ territory when I made a point of staying up and watching.
I like his songs and I find Fred Eaglesmith to be absolutely hilarious, whether he’s explaining why he no longer plays at folk festivals to haranguing the New Farm’s audience for being city folks who moved to Creemore, ‘ruined’ the town for the locals by making it into a little Toronto and then not even shopping there as they commute back and forth to work. (When he was playing in Wingham a couple of years back, I went on and on about how great he was until a group working at the newspaper office there decided to go. When we met up after the concert, they just shook their heads at my musical tastes. They didn’t enjoy the experience at all. To this day, I can’t understand it.)
The concert at the New Farm was even more of a Fred Eaglesmith concert experience than usual because of the venue. A family run organic farm, it provides restaurants in the Toronto, Collingwood and Barrie areas with seasonal vegetables and, in a partnership with The Stop Community Food Centre provides “provides fresh, healthy organic food to people in need in the Toronto area”. We were warned, when we ordered tickets, to dress for a concert that was being held, rain or shine, in a barnyard that’s home to chickens and pigs, with concert seating on bales of hay. The ticket price included a “100 per cent local and organic meal (featuring) slow-roasted pork, roots and salads from the New Farm” prepared by two Stop chefs, served right there in the barnyard.  As Fred said, it was a little difficult eating the pork on a bun while the pigs looked on but you ‘gotta do what you gotta do’ and it was delicious. The meal was topped off by Mapleton’s organic ice cream, with wine and Creemore Springs beer available at the cash bar.  The event was a fundraiser for The Stop.
This weekend’s concert in Harriston with a bunch of “red necks” should be another experience – just the kind of audience right up Fred’s alley. If you’ve never seen him, you should consider going. But, if you’re not impressed, don’t blame me. I am a ‘Fredhead’ after all.