Tom Says: “I Hate To Say I Told You So, But I Told You So…”
As soon as I heard Celine Dion was coming to Halifax to play the Halifax Common, I knew in my own mind that it was not a “marriage made in heaven.”
It had nothing to do with whether or not I would go and see her. Personally there aren’t very many acts I would sit with fifty-thousand others outdoors to see and hear. Elton John might be one of them.
It occurred to me as I wrote in the space back on November 9th that Celine Dion fans, (and I have no idea who they are) maybe aren’t the type of people who would take a folding lawn chair, a cooler full of Keith’s, (the best beer I’ve tasted in a long time) and plunk their backsides down with fifty-thousand of their closest friends to listen to her sing.
For her husband and manager to be quoted in the French media in Quebec that she was simply run out of town by the negativity of the Halifax media is beyond my comprehension.
I read both of the Halifax newspapers each day and watch the evening news on CTV and unless I missed it all, I didn’t see or hear much negative about the planned concert. I think the Halifax Common is a great location for open air concerts and I hope the local promoters are successful in their on-going attempt to get big (though yet unnamed) acts to come to the city and do their thing.
I can think of a number of well known loud acts who would draw thousands and thousands of people to see them live in Halifax — but not Celine Dion.
Would Moncton had taken the concert? Not on your life.
Would Toronto take an open air Celine Dion concert? Not on your life.
Indoors? In comfortable chairs where you could actually hear her sing? It would be an amazing show — but not in the Commons in Halifax.
If it was negative publicity which caused the cancellation of the Halifax gig, both Dion and her manager husband had better forget reading the newspaper, listening to radio or watching TV in any of the other sites she’s playing on her latest world tour.
Halifax is ready for another concert — just make sure the fans are ready for whoever the headliner is.
I’m Tom Young.