Kate and I had "Founders Tickets"1 for The Nashville Takeover weekend in Stratford (April 10-12). We also have regular weekend tickets for a similar event in Moncton, NB (Sept 18-20) which will be an occasion to visit with our niece Paula. So this Stratford event is a bit of a first for us .. and for Stratford. St Marys, where we live, is almost a suburb of Stratford — we are only 20 minutes away.
The event is a Friday thru Sunday "concert" series started in 2025, founded by Scottie James (we met him) under Backyard Music Co., which transforms small towns into Nashville-styled singer/songwriter hubs. I understand last year there were events in nearby Port Stanley and Collingwood. This year there are 13 events scattered across the country but mostly in Ontario. Performers were mostly but not all Canadian, some local. Many of the Canadian and American performers had a Nashville connection, although the one we liked best was from Texas😊.
The model for these "concerts" is the songwriters' circle of the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville where perhaps three or four singer/songwriters would trade songs with one another w/o a band, seated in a circle, to an attentive audience around them. This ain't Rock 'n Roll this is the listening room model and, if you don't want to listen, then I'd suggest you stay the fuck at home! Many of the crowded events had too many people chatting loudly to one another in the standing room only areas — especially on the Saturday which was very busy. Did we really need packed houses?
We have been to the Bluebird Cafe several times on trips south (e.g., see Nashville & Atlanta 2001, Florida Road Trip 2012). We'd make a diversion to Nashville just to catch a show there. It's out of the way, very special, and quite small (it might seat 60 people) which makes it ideal as a listening room. The cafe has never been a secret but became a well known icon because of the Nashville TV series (2012). Getting tickets for events there was a struggle before; I gather it's near impossible now.
If you're interested here's an album gleaned from our visits to the Bluebird on those road trips.
The many simultaneous events were held within walking distance of one another in downtown Stratford. You had no advance details on who would be playing at any of the events and the performers did not do a good job of identifying themselves and making their names known. At one of the early events I called out to have them introduce themselves. One fellow (turns out, I think, it's Tim Ronan) identifies himself as "moth, you know, like from Timothy". That's not a good way to build a following. Handing out business cards with social media links would help a lot. Or perhaps a white board at the front of each stage with the performers names and where they were from.
After the event was over we received a mailing detailing who the players were at the many events. That helped but they need to do more. E.g., I struggle to tag the artists in the photo album above and I think some of the player lists are incomplete (who was the 4th at Cafe Bouffon?).
There was a "VIP welcome event" at the Starlight on Friday (that's where we met Scottie) with drinks and noshes and "end of the weekend" Sunday events at Cafe Bouffon (upstairs) with full restaurant service and Pazzo Pizzeria (downstairs).
We were at a "VIP Mimosa and Songs" event Saturday morning at The Bunker (a very small intimate venue that we really need to explore). That's where we first met Zach Aaron although he was also at the Starlight on Friday; we ought to have approached him then. There were other events at the Bunker but we can't be everywhere. The idea is to cycle through the several venues for surprises at each — they called the breaks "time for a bus crawl".
There were song writers' circles upstairs at the Grayson Mills and stage events downstairs (the Grayson is a special events place). There were also late night jams at Grayson Mills for VIP ticket holders; The late night jams were included with Founders tickets but we are not late night folk.
One of the witty lines from one of the songs at a Grayson song circle .... "If the man won't change, change the man!"
There were events at the Copperlight (a turn of the century large red brick church at Ontario & Waterloo streets). We went to a Saturday evening event in the Copperlight Sanctuary (our friends Sam and Albie were downstairs, we were supposed to meet up but they ended up downstairs while we were upstairs). We first sat up front by the speakers (too loud); we moved back but still didn't like the acoustics (too much echo); so we left (and met Sam and Albie on the way out — they weren't too impressed with the set they were at); some folks we met later told us they sat in the balcony and that the sound there was great there. The church has beautiful art nouveau detailing throughout but it's water damaged in far too many places. We attended an "Optimism Place" event in the downstairs space several years ago but had never been in the sanctuary before.
Chuck's Roadhouse, a restaurant on the town hall square, had several events. We caught Zach Aaron again there on Sunday (we had asked him where he would be playing) in a circle with Christiana Alaire and Emma Elena Grace. The venue was a bit noisy with one half still open and catering to guests as a regular restaurant. We were a little disappointed that Zach sang most of the same tunes we had heard at the Bunker — we found that other performers also repeated the same songs. But he has a droll wit: when one of the women dropped a chord he said, "when you make a mistake, just call it jazz." That line could come from Townes Van Zandt!
Sunday evening we returned for one of two closing events. We sat at the Cafe Bouffon for great closing set. The restaurant wisely limited how many could enter and felt most similar to a Bluebird style event. This event, and the Saturday mimosas at the Bunker were the best events of the weekend for us. And Zach Aaron was the musical discovery for us,
It was an interesting concert series. We enjoyed ourselves and look forward to the Moncton event with Paula.
Foonotes:
- We paid $100 more per person ($250 each) to get VIP access for the entire weekend. There were some special VIP events (like the welcome event, the evening jams, the mimosa and songs) and even a VIP seating area at one venue (it was a nice area with couches but minimal view of the musicians). We didn't go to the late evening jams so probably the extra fee was not worth it for us.
