L&A’s Canada 150 celebration attracts 2,000

By Adam Prudhomme
Beaver Staff

A short but heavy rain followed by a light fog created a certain ‘Newfoundland-esque’ feeling for Lennox and Addington’s Celebrate Canada 150 event, held Saturday evening behind the county’s Museum and Archives.

Given that the night’s headlining act was Newfoundland’s own The Irish Descendants, the weather seemed to compliment the night perfectly. Frontman Con O’Brien even commented to the audience that the evening’s climate made him felt right at home.

Event organizers may not have felt the same way in the early evening when the skies opened up just before 7 p.m., right when the first act was set to take the stage. Luck was on their side, however, as the rain that sent people scrambling gave way by 7:10 p.m. and the rest of the night went off without a hitch.

“We had some troopers that fought off the rain at the start of the night and the evening cleared up and we had a great evening,” said Stephen Paul, Director of Community and Development Services for L&A County. “It was a great celebration of Canada 150 and also L&A County.”

All told, an estimated 2,000 visitors attended the free event.

Sol and the Switchblades opened the evening followed by Andrew Martin and 70’s Revolution. After Hastings, Lennox and Addington MP Mike Bossio and L&A County Warden Bill Lowry welcomed everyone to the main event, The Irish Descendants took the stage for an hour-and-a-half of their biggest hits.

“A lot of the feedback we received was it was a great mix of music,” said Paul. “We had the ability to highlight and showcase some great local talent and of course have someone like The Irish Descendants, who are internationally renowned and a great skilled band, it ended up being a wonderful evening.”

Circus Orange closed out the show with their mix of aerial gymnastics and pyrotechnics. Their finishing number included a display of red and white fireworks.

“We had a really strong production team that helped us behind the scenes doing our lighting and audio and we had a volunteer core from the county that was there helping people both arrive and leave the site,” added Paul. “There was probably over 35 people that were behind the scenes making the event work as well as it did that night. It takes a really strong team to pull something like that off.”

Though there are no immediate plans to hold a similar event as of yet, Paul says the success of Saturday’s event coupled with the accolades they garnered for the County’s 150th anniversary event three years prior means there’s a good chance the county will host more outdoor concerts in the future.

“We’re fortunate to have these two large events go extremely well,” said Paul. “We’ll always be looking for opportunities in the future and hoping we will have another chance to show what Lennox and Addington is all about.”