It was a busy weekend for the band The Middle Coast as they played a pair of shows, opening their 11 stop Organization of Saskatchewan Arts Councils with stops in Humboldt on Feb. 24 and Watrous on Feb. 25.
The shows featured the band playing a number of songs off their upcoming album, as well as some cover songs by legendary musicians including Paul McCartney, Otis Redding, Simon and Garfunkel, and Stevie Wonder.
On top of playing music the band also sprinkled in some conversation and jokes with the audience as well as some jokes, says band member Dylan MacDonald.
“(We) want to connect with the audience and make them feel welcome and feel comfortable.”
MacDonald noted they could feel a great connection with the crowd throughout their shows, saying the audiences were very receptive to their music.
“Sometimes with arts councils it’s a mixed bag. You do get often some young people and some middle-aged people but you have some older folks too. It was really nice to see even the older folks in their 70s and 80s enjoying the music. And it was just nice to see that such a wide demographic can enjoy the same music.”
The Middle Coast spent a couple of weeks putting together the set list for this tour, says MacDonald, noting they adapted the list to make it more of an acoustic show.
“We thought people would just like to hear the voices and hear the harmonies and stuff like that and that seemed to work out well… the set list is slightly different every night and we have a lot of tunes that are disposable so we have the ability to kind of switch it up based on what we think people might like.”
The show was a bit of a change up for The Middle Coast who played in front of a crowd of 1,200 people the week prior in Calgary, says MacDonald.
“We do talk more. When we have a bigger show the tunes kind of run into each other and there’s musical transitions between them kind of like what you’d see at an arena show or something.”
For the Middle Coast it does not matter the size of the show they just enjoy playing, noting that each is special in their own way.
The bigger shows are amazing but they do miss the intimacy of the smaller shows.
“It’s fun to come back and not even have the guitars mic’d or anything and just play a really down home kind of show… we’ve been lucky enough to get the opportunity to kind of do it all and we enjoy doing that.”
Overall, MacDonald was really pleased with how both shows went, saying they were great.
“Both were a lot of fun… it was a great start.”
The Middle Coast enjoyed a pair of days off after their show in Watrous before resuming their show with concerts on four straight days stopping in Biggar, Kindersley, Leader, and Assiniboia, Feb. 28 – March 3, before ultimately wrapping up their tour on March 12 in Rosthern.
The Middle Coast Humboldt stop was sponsored by Behiel Will & Biemans Law Offices. The OSAC’s Star’s for Saskatchewan four part Humboldt concert series will wrap up on April 5 with the Fortunate Ones sponsored by Causeway Natural Health.
