By Steve Hubrecht
Invermere is getting set for a music show of a magnitude perhaps never seen before in the Columbia Valley.
Legendary Canadian classic rocker Tom Cochrane is headlining the coming week’s Invermere Mountain Block Party.
The event is a part open-air concert and part street-festival, and will take up the easternmost stretch of 13th Street in downtown Invermere (next to the arena) on Friday, Sept. 6.
Cochrane was born in Lynn Lake, Manitoba and grew up in southern Ontario. When he was 11 years old, Cochrane traded his train set for a guitar, and has been playing ever since.
His first gigs came in the early 1970s, playing acoustic folk music in coffeehouses in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood, then home to a large arts and counterculture scene. Cochrane recorded his first single in 1973, then later rose to fame along with the band Red Rider in the late 1970s and 1980s, with hits such as ‘White Hot’, ‘Boy Inside the Man’, ‘Big League’, and ‘Victory Day’.
His career exploded like a supernova in 1991, with the release of his smash single ‘Life is a Highway’ and hit solo album ‘Mad Mad World’. ‘Life is a Highway’ remains in steady play on radio and on Spotify playlists to this day and reached a whole new audience when country group Rascal Flatts recorded a country-style cover version of the tune for the movie ‘Cars’ in 2006.
Cochrane has won eight Junos, been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Walk of Fame, and has been made an officer of the Order of Canada.
In other words, he’s a full-blown rock star.
So what’s he doing playing in beautiful, but undoubtedly small Invermere? It comes down to connections.
The concert is organized by Columbia Valley event company Mountain Home Productions (MHP). MHP co-owner Stephen Raaflaub explained to the Pioneer that fellow MHP co-owner Jeff Parry spent decades in the music and concert industry and has built up an extensive list of contacts as a result.
“If it was just me, Stephen Raaflaub, going to the agent trying to get Tom Cochrane to play in Invermere, there’s no chance. I wouldn’t get it,” Raaflaub said with a chuckle. “But Jeff knows a lot of people, built up over 45 years, and that helps to open doors.”
Raaflaub outlined that he and Parry are very excited for the Invermere Block Party, saying “it’s going to be great.”
The Pioneer attempted to contact Cochrane for comment, but was unable to secure an interview prior to press time.
In the weeks leading up to the show there was plenty of buzz about the concert. Invermere Mayor Al Miller said he was surprised when he first heard Cochrane would be playing here. “He is a big name . . . I am really looking forward to the show,” Miller told the Pioneer.
Also performing at the Block Party is Matt Andersen. Although Andersen is not quite as famous as Cochrane, he is well known in the Canadian blues and folk scene. Hailing from New Brunswick, Andersen has been performing for more than two decades, has won multiple Maple Blues Awards, a European Blues Award for best solo or acoustic act, and garnered a?Juno Award?nomination for roots and traditional album of the year.
Columbia Valley musicians James Rose and Emma Kade will also be performing this Friday, playing on a side stage in downtown Invermere as part of September’s First Fridays event, which coincides with the Mountain Block Party.
Concert goers should bring their own chairs. There will be food trucks and other attractions downtown, a wind-down party at the Invermere Curling Club, and an after party at ULLR Bar. Gates open at 4:30 p.m.
Raaflaub said MHP, which already brought blues legend Colin James to Invermere earlier this year, hopes to organize more concerts next summer.
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