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Coast City Country Festival

When: April 18-20

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Where: B.C. Place, inside and outside plaza stages and Commodore Ballroom

Tickets and info: coastcountry.com

The three-day Coast City Country music festival rides into town April 18-20 with 26 acts.

Taking place at B.C. Place, the Commodore Ballroom and an outside stage on the stadium plaza, the lineup ranges from big hats like Luke Bryan and Dierks Bentley to a lil’ ole country-and-western crew from Hannah, Alta., by the name of Nickelback.

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The hit machine behind such blazing hard rockers as San Quentin is riding high on the radio with High Time, which is a pretty straight-ahead contemporary country song. The band is already a regular at such massive country music events as Ontario’s Boots and Hearts Music Festival.

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“The Nickelback and Bailey Zimmerman night is going to be a rager. And it’s about time that they played B.C. Place in their adopted hometown,” said Live Nation’s Ryan Balaski. “Trying a new format with the stadium featuring an inside and outdoor stage, so you can move around and check out different artists during the day before the main acts play inside in the evening, is going to be cool. We also have three nights at the Commodore as well, a kickoff on the 18th with Kameron Marlowe and then two late-night after parties with Travis Denning and The War and Treaty.”

The Commodore shows will feature up-and-coming artists such as Meghan Patrick, Owen Riegling, Tenille Arts and Teigen Gayse. Pre-COVID-19, that list might have totalled all the country shows in town for a full calendar year.

Billboard.com noted that country music was hotter in 2023 than it has been in decades, with hits like Jason Aldean’s Try That in a Small Town and Oliver Anthony Music’s Rich Men North of Richmond hitting the right notes with listeners.

Just last week, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter blew up streaming services and sales and is already pegged as a front-runner for album of the year by Variety. Cowboy Carter will likely be competing for that prize against the highly anticipated new album from genre king Morgan Wallen, whose latest rallying cry is titled Come Back as a Redneck.

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“Through COVID, everything streaming country went crazy. And now there are new superstars like Luke Combs and Zach Ryan who are selling out stadiums on their own and the whole genre has exploded,” Balaski said. “It’s also a multi-generational audience with older parents and grandparents bringing their 20-year-olds. The idea was to bring something to town that is out of the summer festival season, trying a new format and country genre.”

Staging Coast City Country in the spring also means not having to compete with bookings for the multitudes of country events that take place all across the U.S. and Canada in the summer. Not only does this mean a higher likelihood of being able to book big names, it also provides a new tourism draw in town. Live Nation is partnering with Destination Vancouver for the upcoming festival.

Among those hoping to break out to that bigger crowd is Chetwin Métis singer Teigen Gayse. The reigning female artist, songwriter and interactive artist of the 2023 B.C. Country Music Association (BCCMA) awards plays the Coast City Country Kick Off Party at the Commodore Ballroom on April 18. Gayse co-wrote her hit If You Show Me Yours with Nickelback lead singer Chad Kroeger.

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“No doubt about it, country is up today. And I think that is because it’s very versatile, with elements of rock, blues, pop and more in there,” she said. “Just look at the names on the Coast City list, it’s huge and so varied. I see my name up on that poster and I’m sure I’ve found my purpose in life.”

Presently writing in Nashville working on her coming album, Gayse’s career got a big boost from the explosion in country music streaming that has occurred in the past few years. Gayse’s latest single, Sleeping With Her, has five million TikTok views and counting. The song is a great example of pop/country crossover with a chorus hook that wouldn’t sound out of place on a classic Fleetwood Mac track.

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Another up-and-comer looking forward to the boost coming from Coast City is Mildmay, Ont., musician Owen Riegling. Working his way up from playing in bar cover bands to winning the Boots and Hearts’ emerging title award in 2022, the singer behind the certified gold hit Old Dirt Roads is looking forward to opening for Travis Denning at the Commodore After Party on April 19. It will be his first time playing in B.C.

“I grew up on a 100-acre farm just outside of Mildmay, which is a community of 1,000 people, and I only moved away two months back after being out on the road with Chase Rice,” said Riegling. “In Ontario, Boots and Hearts is the biggest thing in country music and has been a huge part of the Canadian country music landscape. Since winning there, it’s been a whirlwind of signing with Universal Music, going out on tours and never stopping.”

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While he’s pumped to be involved in an arena event like Coast City Country, Riegling is really looking forward to headlining the 12 small-town bar shows on the Buckle Up Tour presented by Bud Light and Live Nation in May. His new single, Bud Light the Way, dropped last week.

Riegling is opening for — you guessed it — Nickelback in Niagara Falls this June.

sderdeyn@postmedia.com

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