The long-awaited Terri Clark concert has finally been announced for the South Okanagan Events Centre, with the Canadian country music star setting Oct. 28 as the date for her premiere in the South Okanagan.
Clark had been scheduled to perform at the SOEC in August 2009, but the concert was postponed to a later date because of scheduling conflicts. In the year since, the Events Centre has successfully hosted, with near sold out shows, Toby Keith and Carrie Underwood.
The October concert follows closely on the release of Clark’s latest album, Roots and Wings, which will be released on July 26.
Two years ago, the big story was that Terri Clark had done the unthinkable and came home.
After years of being one of the biggest names in country music globally, Terri announced that she was going to focus her attention on Canada. Yearning for change, she vowed to do things “her way.” What fans got in return was what she called the most “personal” record of her career.
“The new album is just as personal. I didn’t think I had it in me to dig that deep again and get that personal. It’s personal in a lighter way.”
The first single from the forthcoming album is Northern Girl, currently a top 10 video and on the top 10 CMT chart. Clark has also been confirmed to appear and perform at the CCMA’s Sept. 12 special on CBC television.
Touring across Canada and the US over the past year, she is arguably one of the biggest country star in Canada.
“People aren’t getting anything from country music the way I think people should, the way I did,” said Clark, who used to tie her guitar to her wrist to take the bus to an afternoon shift playing for tips at Nashville’s storied, but at the time squalid, Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge. Since her breakthrough success in 1995 with Better Things To Do, Clark has run up a long list of hit singles and albums, including her take on Warren Zevon’s 1976 hit, Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me from her second album, Just The Same. That song, along with Emotional Girl, the second single from the album, propelled Clark to the top of the country charts, reaching number one in Canada with both songs, and breaking into the top 10 in the United States.
“You know I’ve put on a lot of miles, literally and in terms of all that happened in my life. The more I was looking at what I was doing, the more I thought: let’s do something really novel, let’s tell each other the truth,” said Clark. She has also partnered with World Vision for the upcoming Canadian tour.
Clark said she has come to realize what matters to her. And once she did, she knew how to make music her way, country loaded with force, rock, soul, strength, clarity, blues, passion and conviction.
“All of this has given me more of that desire to be how I am as an artist.
There is a permanence to my songs that maybe they didn’t have before,” she said. But I know this, they can be here long after I’m gone — and honestly, facing what I’ve been facing the last three years — that is a very big thing.”
Opening the concert on Oct. 28 are The Stellas, seen weekly by two million viewers on eight episodes of the country reality show, Can You Duet. They were selected from thousands of hopefuls for the show that featured Big Kenny and Scott Borchetta as judges, along with Naomi Judd, who, after The Stellas auditioned, yelled “show’s over! Give them the contract now!” The Stellas were voted first place in the show’s viewers’ choice poll.
Tickets go on sale on July 29 at 10 a.m. at the South Okanagan Events Centre Box Office, online at www.ValleyFirstTix.com or charge by phone at 1-877-763-2849. Tickets are $57.50 and $37.50 or purchase four $37.50 priced tickets (this offer only available at the SOEC box office) for only $150 including all taxes, fees and charges.
