HUFF is delighted to welcome hometown hero Ria Mae & her own Halifax All Stars – featuring an opening songwriters’ circle with Friday night’s headliner, Sloan’s Chris Murphy, Saturday night’s headliner Billy Raffoul & Edmonton’s Mallory Chipman – to the intimate confines of The Carleton on Thursday, October 1st. Show time is 8 PM and tickets are $72.50 + HST.
Ria Mae is a platinum-selling pop artist and songwriter from Halifax, Nova Scotia, known for crafting songs that feel as intimate as they are undeniable. With a signature blend of confessional lyricism and instinctive, hook-driven songwriting, her music captures the quiet, complicated emotions people don’t always know how to say out loud – and turns them into something immediate, repeatable, and lasting.
Her platinum-certified singles Bend, Ooh Love, and breakout hit Clothes Off (Top 5 in Canada, #1 on CBC Radio 2) reflect a catalogue rooted in emotional clarity and melodic precision, driving over 90 million global streams. A three-time JUNO nominee and recipient of a SOCAN #1 Award, SOCAN Songwriter of the Year (NSMAs), and multiple ECMA nominations, her music has also been featured in The L Word, CBC’s Olympic coverage, and Hello Goodbye.
Her 2025 sophomore album Two marks a more grounded, present-tense evolution – a record that leans into the reality of going through something, rather than neatly moving past it. The songs carry that same duality she’s known for: restrained, intimate moments that give way to undeniable, full-bodied hooks. She brought that dynamic to the stage with her full-band Tour Two, a set that builds, releases, and pulls audiences through emotional highs and lows in a way that keeps them fully locked in.A recent social media resurgence has reintroduced her catalogue to a new generation while reconnecting longtime listeners, driving renewed demand both online and on the road.In 2026, she enters a new collaborative phase, pairing long-standing catalogue momentum with new releases, beginning with In the Stars featuring and produced by Classified, a full-circle moment.
OPENING SONGWRITERS’ CIRCLE
Chris Murphy has been in the band Sloan for over 30 years. Chris got into the super group game in 2015 when he formed a trio called TUNS (rhymes with buns) with Matt Murphy (Super Friendz/The Flashing Lights) and Mike O’Neill (The Inbreds). Now on a supergroup kick, he formed Trans-Canada Highwaymen in 2017 with Steven Page (ex Barenakedladies), Moe Berg (The Pursuit of Happiness) and Craig Northey (Odds). Then in 2018 some of his other musician friends were complaining they weren’t in a super group so Chris went ahead and agreed to make Anyway Gang with Sam Roberts (Sam Roberts Band), David Monks (Tokyo Police Club) and Menno Versteeg (Hollerado). Please don’t ask Chris to form a group with you. He doesn’t have time. What little time Chris has left over has been earmarked for solo shows where Chris plays songs and tells stories accompanied by acoustic guitar.
Last summer, Billy Raffoul set out to reveal two sides of the same soul, releasing a pair of full-length albums that mirror both intimacy and magnitude. The first, Billy Raffoul, arrived on July 18 as a hushed, acoustic meditation on connection-born from a transformative journey through South Africa and shaped by songs that affirm, challenge, and gently push beyond boundaries. Just weeks later, on August 15, he returned with When I Cross The River, a gritty, rock-leaning counterpart-songs forged in the studio and built to be played at full volume. Together, the records form a single portrait, capturing who Raffoul is in this moment: grounded, expansive, and unafraid. Music, after all, knows no borders. It moves faster than any plane or passing moment, leaping from a pub in Germany to a festival in Africa, then finding its way back to a late- night room in Ontario.
Hailing from the Canadian prairies, Mallory Chipman is a true musical polymath. An award-winning musician as well as a songwriter, producer, and music scholar, Chipman is celebrated for her acrobatic voice and the way she powerfully weaves truth and story into song. With influences from across genres, Mallory Chipman’s signature sound has been described as “the finest folk-rock currently being made” (Amplify Magazine).