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Folk rock-alternative country band plays Nanaimo on 25th anniversary tour

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings released their 11th studio album, ‘O Glory,’ this past summer
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Tom Wilson, left, Colin Linden, Stephen Fearing of Blackie and the Rodeo Kings will play Nanaimo’s Port Theatre Nov. 12. (Photo by Mark Maryanovich)

A Juno-award winning folk rock-alternative country band from Ontario will stop in Nanaimo while on tour celebrating their 25th year as band.

The show at the Port Theatre will be one of only two Island venues Blackie and the Rodeo Kings will play as they tour across Canadian until mid-December.

According to a press release for the show, the group is also celebrating the release of its 11th studio album, O Glory, which came out July this year.

“If any band was uniquely positioned to withstand the impossible demands made by [the] despicable COVID-19, it was Blackie and the Rodeo Kings…” noted a release. “While much of the planet struggled to find new ways of working, singer-songwriter and guitarists Stephen Fearing, Colin Linden, and Tom Wilson coolly leveraged the flexibility that’s sustained them for 25 years, sheltering in their respective home bases of Victoria, Nashville and Hamilton, using technology to bridge the chasm separating them from each other and their rhythm section of Gary Craig and John Dymond.”

Fearing said technology has come a long way and so he “pounced” on the opportunity to record remotely.

“Like a lot of musicians, after the initial shock of the pandemic lockdown, the impetus became finding ways to connect with the world…” he said. “It was then a matter of coming up with songs and getting them to each other.”

Blackie and the Rodeo Kings will play the Port Theatre on Saturday, Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m. Ticket information for the show can be obtained online at www.porttheatre.com.

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