The Carleton

We hope everyone is having a great time while the Canadian Country Music Awards are in Halifax, we sure have been! We’d just like to let everyone know that we’ll be closed for a private party tonight – Saturday, September 12th – after 9 PM. If you’re hungry, by all means come in before then!

If you’re not going to the awards show on Sunday, or if you’d just like a break from Country music, we’ve got a great show with Australian band Oh Pep! from Melbourne. Opening the show is our own Tyler Messick. The listing is to your left on this site. Both great acts and it’s just a few bucks at the door to get in.

The curtain just closed on the best Halifax Urban Folk Festival in its six year history and as we bask – for just a little – in the after-glow of that, we’re getting ready to host the cream of Canadian Country Music stars and its attendant industry for the Canadian Country Music Awards.

Like the rest of the city, The Carleton will be involved in a number of events over this exciting week and the public will be welcome to shows we have happening on Thursday and Friday nights, not to mention a special early show on Sunday, September 13th by Australia’s Oh Pep! That has nothing to do with the CCMAs but not everyone can be at the ScotiaBank Centre that night, right?

So stop in for lunch and/or dinner. Take in some live music. Live a little.

If you give a rat’s about live music, you should be online and getting your tickets to our 6th annual Halifax Urban Folk Festival NOW! This year’s crop of talent at HUFF – in all seven participating venues – is phenomenal and The Carleton‘s line-up is flat-out amazing.

Tickets for all our events are available in the side bar to the left of this post. If you don’t know what the “Halifax All Stars” reference is about, it’s simply that we organize full bands for a lot of our headlining artists – made up of the best musicians in the city – to give our paying customers the full rock’n’roll experience they would never, ever, get to have without traveling great distances (and at great expense) to see.

So if you’re in Halifax, you’re being offered the treat of a lifetime and would have to be daft to pass up the opportunity. Of course, you need to get a ticket to do it. If you’re a fan of Teenage Fanclub and its main man, Norman Blake, and you haven’t already got a ticket, you’re out of luck. The smart people already beat you to the punch.

Don’t let that happen again, get your tickets NOW!

This weekend – August 22nd & 23rd – Argyle Street is closed to traffic for a nice little “Taste Of Argyle” promotion to show off the excellent food offered by ourselves and our neighbours on the street. Everyone’s got something yummy and you can wander around without fear of getting hit by a car!

Here’s what our kitchen has come up with in the way of bite-sized tasters. I tasted them, they’re all really, really good.

AND on Saturday, between 4 and 6 PM we’ll have live entertainment on our patio deck because we are, after all, the best live music venue east of Montreal. We’ll also have folks playing music on Sunday, between 2 and 4 PM. So, take a walk downtown, drop in to The Carleton for food, drink and some song.

There’s a private party happening at The Carleton on Saturday, August 15th. Very hush hush, very, um, private…

Kiefer Sutherland (yeah, that Kiefer Sutherland) and his band, along with The Common Linnets (Netherlands), Bobby Cameron and The Carletones will be performing for invited guests only. HOWEVER, we’re going to run a contest to give away some tickets to those of you who (a) dig exclusive events and (b) like entering contests!

Here’s the contest blurb…

Build your Carleton VIP Profile and enter to win tickets to an exclusive event featuring Bobby Cameron, The Common Linnets, The Kiefer Sutherland Band, and The Carletones on Saturday, August 15. Text CARLETON to 770077 to learn how to join. Standard message & data rates may apply.

All of our musician friends are out of town tonight – along with pretty much everyone who mixes live music – so we won’t have live entertainment at The Carleton tonight (Friday, July 31st). HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t come by. We still have lots of very yummy food and delicious drinks and the music in-house is always great anyway. The better news is that there’ll be no cover!

The mighty Carletones will be kicking it out as usual on Saturday night!

I feel a little sorry for anyone visiting Halifax over the past couple of weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I feel sorry for those of us who live here too but a rainy holiday is particularly galling. So what should one do when faced with a weather insult such as the one we’re experiencing?

There are lots of ways to amuse oneself indoors during the day in the city – museums, galleries and the like – but in the evening, you can’t do better than catching some live music at The Carleton. And tonight we’ve got something very, very special happening!

One of the best songwriters/performers you’ll ever get the chance to see (anywhere) is in Halifax playing at our club. Lloyd Cole (from Lloyd Cole & The Commotions fame) will be on stage at 8 PM. You can read the listing – and buy tickets – at the link you’ll see if you cast your eyes to the left of this column. Dinner and a show of this calibre is the kind of memory you’ll keep with you forever – even if it did rain on your vacation parade.

I guarantee you there is nothing more compelling happening in this town tonight.

Weather’s maddening isn’t it? Just when you thought summer had finally arrived in these eastern climes, it decides to spend the better part of a week raining cats and dogs. Which sucks, but I should remind everyone that it doesn’t rain indoors and The Carleton is a great place to come in out of the pesky rain.

If you haven’t been downtown recently, you’ll see by the photo above that the Nova Centre folks have finally gotten around to putting up the promised “hoarding” around the site so now you can see this colourful display instead of the gnarly construction stuff going on behind it…

I’ll also remind everyone that our kitchen is REALLY good, and easy on the wallet, so you should come in for lunch and/or dinner this week (while the rain falls). You’ll be happy you did – and so will we!

It’s Friday night (July 17th) and whether you just got paid (as the song goes), or not, we’ve got cool doings happening at The Carleton.

Firstly, Happy Hour starts at 4 PM – just about the time the sun starts thinking about coming back to our corner of the street after making its way around the Nova Centre construction – so there are cheap cocktails and appetizers on our fab deck while you look across the street at the new hoarding on the fence of the construction site to try to figure out what it means…

Then… we’ve got Toronto‘s alternative rockers The Wooden Sky (with bassist Jon Hynes opening) on stage at 7:30 PM. Last night’s show was packed – and fantastic – and, believe it or not, there are still a few tickets left ($15 – you can get them by clicking on the show listing to the left of this post). If you decide to go, make sure you get there early for dinner to grab a great seat for the performance!

Later on in the evening we’ve got another great Toronto band – The Old Salts – taking the stage. They’ll be making live music after 10 PM and it’s only $5 at the door to get into the joint.

We like to think the weekend starts on Thursdays during the summer and do we have a night of entertainment TONIGHT (July 16th)!

Toronto’s The Wooden Sky performs at 7:30 (bassist Jon Hynes opens the show). Somehow there are still tickets left so your plan should be to come for dinner around 6 and then settle in for what will be a fantastic evening of indie rock/folk. The aforementioned tickets are only $15 and you can get them by clicking on the show just to the right of this post.

Later in the night, local Jessie Brown continues her Resonance Residency at The Carleton, along with special guests The Stogies and Mike Ryan from The Town Heroes. We’ll have live music on the stage around 9:30 and it’s $8 at the door to get in.