Rich Aucoin @ Drake Underground Jan 13, 2012
August 2011 saw us traveling to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for our first trip to the east coast. We were headed to Wolfville for our lovely friends’ beautiful wedding but first wanted to see a little bit of the town we’d sung about so many times. After meeting up with some friends for seafood and beer, we headed to a bar called Gus’ Pub at the other end of town. We were there for a show a friend had read about in the paper. We weren’t sure what to expect, really – when I thought of Halifax and music I couldn’t help but think of fiddles in kitchens.
The bar was a dive as we expected – though we weren’t really prepared for the glass-walled in-bar casino/smoking room. We sipped our way through the bottles and found the least offensive tasting beer (Schooner Lager, wasn’t actually too bad especially once we had even more) and tried to talk over the screaming of the first act. The second band was an improvement, saw us up and dancing and was something more akin to music but when Rich Aucoin took the stage as the main act our socks were blown right off and into the Atlantic.
Yes, that is a confetti cannon.
Rich Aucoin can be summed up in one word: positivity. His show is an audio/visual explosion of colourful lights, confetti, sing-a-longs, and awesome music with a great beat to dance to, often incorporating YouTube videos and other hilarious internet memes as samples. Guaranteed at any show is an audience dancing, clapping, laughing, singing and playing under a giant colourful parachute — yes, just like in Kindergarten. I don’t know if I’ve ever had so much fun at a show as I did that night in Gus’ Pub. It’s amazing that our first experience seeing Aucoin was on his home turf, the energy in the crowd was audible. Last night, Aucoin showed he takes that energy with him no matter the town.
Here are some of my favourite shots from last night. More can be found here.
Dancing in the crowd
The visuals are so awesome!
The Dude was tickled by this
Amazing as always
Jess' Messes 