Halifax latest to benefit from Junos
The streets are lined with banners. Fans have been dishing out upwards of $500 US on Ebay for a pair of tickets to the main event. Downtown retailers have turned window fronts into shrines. And hotels are booked solid. "Everybody's scurrying around like laboratory mice," said Victor Syperek, who owns several restaurants in Halifax, the site of this weekend's Juno Awards.
"It's quite interesting to see."
Added concert organizer and former MuchMusic personality Mike Campbell: "You can't really have a conversation with anybody (in Halifax) about anything without it eventually getting back to the Junos."
It's a scene that's been played out in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Ottawa and St. John's, N.L.
Once a stodgy, industry-only affair, the Juno Awards have transformed themselves into a hip, must-attend public bash by taking the show on the road.
The festivities in Halifax, which include A-list celebrities Pamela Anderson and Coldplay, mark the fifth anniversary of the roving gala.
Previously, it had been held outside Toronto only twice - Vancouver in 1991 and 1998 - since its inception 35 years ago.
"It really seemed like a crazy concept in the beginning. We thought it might just be a one-off like it had been to Vancouver a couple of times," said Melanie Berry, president of The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.
"Then we realized the impact."
The 2002 Juno festivities held in Newfoundland and Labrador generated some $29 million in revenue.
But perhaps the greater impact of the travelling show is the effect on fans, who have a chance to celeb spot on home turf and check out bands that seldom visit their neck of the woods.
In Edmonton, for instance, more than 12,000 people turned out to an autograph signing session at the West Edmonton Mall featuring stars such as Nelly Furtado, Nickelback and Sam Roberts. In Ottawa, fans camped out in front of hotels hoping to catch a glimpse of country vixen Shania Twain, who hosted the awards that year.
"Having this kind of concentration of musical talent in the city over one weekend is completely unheard of," said Campbell, who organized this weekend's JunoFest concert series, which will have 116 music acts performing over two nights in 15 venues.
It's a real coup since superstar acts rarely include Halifax on tour routes, he added.
"It just doesn't compute with most of the (concert booking) agents so this is really a serious feast for music fans," he said.
One local newspaper is hoping to take advantage of the Junos by launching an online petition - called More Peas Please - to get the Black Eyed Peas to do a full-on concert in the city.
The travelling show has also translated into a TV ratings windfall with more people than ever before tuning into the show.
Comedian Brent Butt, who hosted last year's show out of Winnipeg, has suggested TV viewers get caught up in the local frenzy.
"There's inherent excitement because it's a new thing that's coming to town that isn't going to be there next year. They get jacked up and, as a viewer, as a fan, as a guy watching TV, you can't not pick up on that excitement," he said at the time.
"It just wasn't there before when it was in the same location."
But bringing the show to a new city each year isn't exactly easy.
Local crews aren't always accustomed to the requirements of a large-scale awards show that has multiple stages and airs live.
Older hockey arenas, like Halifax's, don't have much loading space for the oodles of band and TV equipment required. Worse yet, for the St. John's show, the equipment - including more than 600 kilometres of cable and a broadcast truck - had to come over on the ferry, say producers.
Still, the headaches are well worth it.
"No slight to Toronto but it's been great for all the other cities to have that momentum," said singer Joel Plaskett, recalling the energy at the Edmonton awards.
"It's important to celebrate a national music scene in the smaller (cities) . . . the places that aren't just central."
Next year's Junos are to be held in Saskatoon.
Cavanagh Not 'Monkey'-ing Around
Tom Cavanagh apparently doesn't have any hard feelings toward CBS.
Cavanagh, who starred in the very short-lived "Love Monkey" on the network earlier this season, is back in business at CBS. He's signed on to star in a comedy pilot called "My Ex-Life," the showbiz trade papers report.
The latest round of pilot casting also includes Jeri Ryan, recently seen on "The O.C.," Illeana Douglas ("Action"), Xander Berkeley ("24") and Oscar-nominated screenwriter/actor Dan Futterman.
"My Ex-Life" is a comedy about a divorced couple who remain friends and share custody of their kids. Cavanagh, whose credits also include "Ed" and a recurring part on "Scrubs," will play the lead role of Nick. It's a quick bounce-back for the actor after "Love Monkey," which debuted in January and was yanked after just three episodes.
Also at CBS, Ryan will star opposite James Woods in "Shark," about a famous lawyer who becomes a prosecutor. The former "Boston Public" and "Star Trek: Voyager" star will play Woods' boss in the district attorney's office. Lynn Whitfield ("Madea's Family Reunion") will guest-star in the pilot in what could become a recurring part.
Over at ABC, Douglas has joined Heather Locklear in the comedy "Women of a Certain Age." The show centers on Locklear's character, a widow who embarks on a new life with the help of her friends. Douglas' recent TV credits include "Six Feet Under" and "Law & Order: SVU."
Berkeley, recently seen in "North Country," will co-star in the ABC drama "Women in Law." Futterman, who co-wrote the Oscar-nominated script for "Capote," will guest in the network's "Brothers & Sisters," playing Calista Flockhart's boyfriend -- which he also did in "The Birdcage." The role could be a recurring one if the show is picked up.
'Inside Man' Tops at Box Office With $29M
LOS ANGELES - Denzel Washington's reunion with Spike Lee put them on the inside track at the box office.
Their bank-hostage thriller "Inside Man," an unusually commercial project for director Lee, debuted as the No. 1 weekend film with $29 million — the best opening ever for both the filmmaker and his star, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Universal's "Inside Man" knocked off the previous weekend's top movie, the Warner Bros. action tale "V for Vendetta," which slipped to second with $12.3 million. "V for Vendetta" raised its 10-day total to $46.2 million.
Disney's fright flick "Stay Alive," featuring Frankie Muniz in a tale about a video game that brings death to its players, premiered in third place with $11.2 million.
The weekend's other new wide release, Lionsgate's "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector," a gross-out romp starring comic Dan Whitney investigating a food-poisoning outbreak, opened at No. 7 with $7.05 million.
Stung by declining revenues over the last year, Hollywood broke out of its latest slump, with the top-12 movies grossing $98.9 million, up 10.6 percent from the same weekend a year ago. The upswing followed a month of declines.
The solid weekend was a prelude to this Friday's debut of the animated sequel "Ice Age: The Meltdown," considered an early lead-in to a summer season that launches with Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible 3" on May 5.
"This was a good kickoff to what I think will be a pretty good run leading up to summer," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
"Inside Man," starring Washington, Jodie Foster and Clive Owen in a story of cops against robbers during a Manhattan bank heist, exceeded box-office expectations for distributor Universal, which had figured on a $20 million weekend at best.
Lee and Washington's earlier collaborations include "Malcolm X" and "He Got Game."
At $29 million, "Inside Man" topped Washington's previous best opening weekend of $22.8 million for "Man on Fire" and Lee's previous best of $11.1 million for "The Original Kings of Comedy."
Two-thirds of viewers for "Inside Man" were older than 30, a promising sign for Hollywood, whose key audience of young males has been less inclined to go to the movies with so many other entertainment distractions such as video games and DVDs.
"They were motivated to go. They love the material, they love the actor," said Nikki Rocco, Universal's head of distribution. "It's the motivation to get them to go to the movies, and I hope that we as an industry keep that up. If we want the business to survive, we have to continue to find ways to motivate them."
"Inside Man" also took in $9.6 million over its opening weekend in 18 other countries.
Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Inside Man," $29 million.
2. "V for Vendetta," $12.3 million.
3. "Stay Alive," $11.2 million.
4. "Failure to Launch," $10.8 million.
5. "The Shaggy Dog," $9.1 million.
6. "She's the Man," $7.4 million.
7. "Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector," $7.05 million.
8. "The Hills Have Eyes," $4.25 million.
9. "Eight Below," $2.7 million.
10. "16 Blocks," $2.2 million.
Country Music Star Buck Owens Dies at 76
LOS ANGELES - Singer Buck Owens, the flashy rhinestone cowboy who shaped the sound of country music with hits like "Act Naturally" and brought the genre to TV on the long-running "Hee Haw," died Saturday. He was 76.
Owens died at his home in Bakersfield, said family spokesman Jim Shaw. The cause of death was not immediately known. Owens had undergone throat cancer surgery in 1993 and was hospitalized with pneumonia in 1997.
His career was one of the most phenomenal in country music, with a string of more than 20 No. 1 records, most released from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s.
They were recorded with a honky-tonk twang that came to be known throughout California as the "Bakersfield Sound," named for the town 100 miles north of Los Angeles that Owens called home.
"I think the reason he was so well known and respected by a younger generation of country musicians was because he was an innovator and rebel," said Shaw, who played keyboards in Owens' band, the Buckaroos. "He did it out of the Nashville establishment. He had a raw edge."
Owens, elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, was modest when describing his aspirations.
"I'd like to be remembered as a guy that came along and did his music, did his best and showed up on time, clean and ready to do the job, wrote a few songs and had a hell of a time," he said in 1992.
An indefatigable performer, Owens played a red, white and blue guitar with fireball fervor. He and the Buckaroos wore flashy rhinestone suits in an era when flash was as important to country music as fiddles.
"When people start looking back on his career, they are going to be surprised by the number of things he did first," said guitarist Roy Clark, who worked with Owens on "Hee Haw." "He left a great legacy in country music."
Among his biggest hits were "Together Again" (also recorded by Emmylou Harris), "I've Got a Tiger by the Tail," "Love's Gonna Live Here," "My Heart Skips a Beat" and "Waitin' in Your Welfare Line."
And he was the answer to this music trivia question: What country star had a hit record that was later done by the Beatles?
"Those guys were phenomenal," Owens once said.
Ringo Starr recorded "Act Naturally" twice, singing lead on the Beatles' 1965 version and recording it as a duet with Owens in 1989. The song, by Johnny Russell and Voni Morrison, tells of a poor soul who foresees a movie career playing "a man who's sad and lonely, and all I gotta do is act naturally. ... Might win an Oscar, you can never tell."
In addition to music, Owens had a highly visible TV career as co-host of "Hee Haw" from 1969 to 1986. With Clark, he led viewers through a potpourri of country music and hayseed humor.
"It's an honest show," Owens told The Associated Press in 1995. "There's no social message — no crusade. It's fun and simple."
Owens himself could be rebellious, choosing among other things to label what he did "American music" rather than country.
"I took a little heat," he once said. "People asked me, `Isn't country music good enough for you?' "
He also criticized the syrupy arrangements of some country singers, saying "assembly-line, robot music turns me off."
After his string of hits, Owens stayed away from the recording scene for a decade, returning in 1988 to record another No. 1 record, "Streets of Bakersfield," with Dwight Yoakam.
Yoakam said he saw Owens just days before his death.
"Even though he seemed in a somewhat fragile physical state, he was emotionally exuberant and still living life in a forward motion, discussing a variety of plans for his future," Yoakam said in a statement. "I will cherish, forever, the musical moments he graciously shared with me during his life. I will be eternally grateful for his fatherly chastisements, encouragement and, ultimately, his friendship and love."
He spent much of his time away concentrating on his business interests, which included a Bakersfield TV station and radio stations in Bakersfield and Phoenix.
"I never wanted to hang around like the punch-drunk fighter," he told The Associated Press in 1992.
He had moved to Bakersfield in 1951, hoping to find work in the thriving juke joints of what in the years before suburban sprawl was a truck-stop town on Highway 99, between Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area.
"We played rhumbas and tangos and sambas, and we played Bob Wills music, lots of Bob Wills music," he said, referring to the bandleader who was the king of Western swing.
"And lots of rock 'n' roll," he added.
Owens started recording in the mid-1950s, but gained little success until 1963 with "Act Naturally," his first No. 1 single.
Alvis Edgar Owens Jr. was born in 1929 outside Sherman, Texas, the son of a sharecropper. With opportunities scarce during the Depression, the family moved to Arizona when he was 8.
He dropped out of school at age 13 to haul produce and harvest crops, and by 16 he was playing music in taverns.
He once told an audience, "When I was a little bitty kid, I used to dream about playing the guitar and singing like some of those great people that we had the old, thick records of."
Owens' first wife, Bonnie Owens, sometimes performed with him and went on to become a leading backup singer after their divorce in 1955. She had occasional solo hits in the '60s, as well as successful duets with her second husband, Merle Haggard.
One of her two sons with Owens also became a singer, using the name Buddy Alan. He had a Top 10 hit in 1968, "Let the World Keep on a-Turnin'," and recorded a number of duets with his father.
In addition to Buddy, he is survived by two other sons, Michael and John.