The Carleton

The Carleton turns 7 next week and we’re doing a bunch of nice things to promote that celebratory fact. Things get underway on Mother’s Day – Sunday, May 10th – with the astonishingly good, Juno Award-winning, Meaghan Smith.

Our show is the only one she’s doing after postponing her Canadian tour. It’s a very rare chance to see this Sire Records recording artist in her home town. Show time is 8 PM and tickets are $25.

Sensational Australian songwriter Jordie Lane (one of our absolute favourites) brings Clare Reynolds with him for a just-announced (we found out he was hanging out in Chester with Old Man Luedecke!) duo show on Wednesday, May 13th.

This will be Jordie’s first headlining show at The Carleton and it’s about time. The show will start at 8 PM and tickets are only $10 at the door. Our pal Jont (just finishing an album with help from Joel Plaskett and now performing as The Infinite Possibility) and our own Jon Cornwall will be doing short sets to open!

On Thursday night, May 14th, our very good friends The Stanfields perform an exceedingly rare acoustic show to help us during our special week.

The last time the band did this, over a year ago, they sold out three nights. This time around it’s one night only and if you didn’t get your act together to get tickets, you blew it. The show is SOLD OUT.

Fridays are fun nights at our place. They’re all about not sitting down and quietly sitting through an intimate performance, rather an opportunity to rock out, dance, chat and generally let the hair down as they used to say! Friday the 15th we’re featuring some of the new young bands in our midst…

Members of  last year’s winner of Casino Nova Scotia’s Artist In Residence program – The Brood – will join the fantastically-named Owen Meany’s Batting Stance (gotta love a John Irving fan, I say)  along with Campbell Woods and Ostrea Lake to provide entertainment on the night. Live music will start at 10 PM and it’s a measly $5 at the door to get in. You’re welcome…

AND, what would Saturday nights be without the mighty Carletones, the best rock’n’roll house band in Halifax. Featuring most of Matt Mays‘ touring band – including lead singer and star-in-his-own-right Adam Baldwin. They’ll be on stage as usual on the 16th to wrap the week up.

The band usually manages to start making noise at around 10:30 PM and, as always, it’s only $5 at the door to get in. I’m encouraging them to bring along some special guests so come down to see who shows up!

If there’s any justice in the world, we should also have our patio open for the weekend of our 7th anniversary celebrations. When it is, make sure you come out to enjoy the sun and take a look at the progress of the Nova Centre across the street. It’s starting to get, um, LARGE…

 

A trip to St. John’s is lovely at any time of year but it’s even lovelier when one is there to attend the ECMAs and lovelier still when The Carleton wins the East Coast Music Award for Venue of the Year! I’d like to thank all the folks who work hard for us at the club – especially Jon Cornwall who does sound – all of you for coming out to the shows and all the artists who grace us with their talent.

If you’re at loose ends tonight, you could do far worse than heading down to The Carleton to see Susan Crowe and Cindy Church tonight (Wednesday, April 15th). We still have a few tickets left but not many. Show time is 8 PM. Advanced tickets are $20 or it’s $25 at the door.

 

I’m hoping that (a) that last insult of a snowstorm marks the end of the April jokes for the long-suffering citizens of Halifax (b) over the course of this coming weekend those same citizens decide to leave their snow-bunkers to come visit us at The Carleton for some of our kitchen’s excellent food, our bar’s excellent drinks and our stage’s excellent talent and (c) the weather in St. John’s is better than it is here!

Yes, I’m off to the East Coast Music Awards in Newfoundland to see some great music, hang with some cool artists and industry friends and attend the various awards thingies that will occur over the weekend. The picture above is of the trophies we’ve won for Venue of the Year over our short lifespan. The blue ones in the background are from Music Nova Scotia, the two treble clefs in the foreground are ECMAs. We’re nominated again this year in that category and, win or lose, I’m there to represent the fine folks who work for us.

Wish us luck and, better yet, come to The Carleton, we’re waaaaaayyyy more than just the best live music venue East of Montreal…

Hard to believe with all this snow still on the ground but it’s Easter weekend!

The Carleton will be closed on Easter Sunday and Monday but we’ll be open as usual on Friday and Saturday and we’ve got great entertainment – as well as excellent food and drink – both nights.

The fantabulous Roxy & The Underground Soul Sound are in on Friday night, bringing their killer take on Soul and R&B for your dancing pleasure and The Carletones hold down the fort on Saturday. It’s not supposed to snow so why not get out of the house and live a little! $5 at the door to get in each night. No better entertainment money spent, we guarantee you that…

If you’re smart – and I’m assuming you are already if you’re looking at this page – you’ll click on the Jeremy Fisher show link to your left and pick up some of the few tickets remaining to this Juno Award-winning artist’s show at The Carleton TONIGHT!

Show time is 8 PM and tickets are $20.

TONIGHT! We happen to have the guy I consider the best songwriter in Canada – Ron Hawkins –  in town to promote his new Garden Songs CD, playing at the club and it’s not yet sold out. That, my friends, is a travesty. Firstly, it’s an early show (7 PM) so it won’t eat your whole night; secondly, it’s only $12.50 advanced and $15 at the door (should be twice that much) and thirdly, he’ll be doing a solo set and one with pals Scrapes so you’ll get the full band effect too.

Holy smokes, this town needs to get a grip! Oh, and in case you haven’t heard, the snow’s been cleared and you can park downtown now so this isn’t one of those, “we can’t there from here” things.

Ron got up early to be on the Global Morning Show with Paul Brothers. Check out the vid from that interview/performance HERE.

Honestly, if you’re in Halifax tonight and consider yourself a music lover, you’re blowing it if you don’t come out for this show – they don’t get any better than this, trust me…

 

 

Firstly, we would like to thank the incredibly talented Barney Bentall, Cory Tetford, Dustin Bentall and Kendel Carson for one of the best nights of live music we’ve ever had in our award-winning club and for their generousity in donating all the ticket proceeds from the sold out show to The Carleton to help us get through this ungodly winter.

The show was text book Carleton: music was fantastic, service was excellent and folks ate and drank like folks should at events like this. Thank you to all who came out to make the night a spectacular success and we hope to see you again sooner, rather than later. We have some amazing stuff booked in the coming months.

Secondly, and I saw this with my own eyes (and camera), the city brought out the big guns last night to seriously make a big dent in the walls of snow and ice on Argyle and Prince Streets, which means… you can park downtown again!!!!

And that’s good because we’ve got great shows over the next few nights. Like: Ken Tizzard (The Watchmen, Thornley) with Chris Ryan tonight (Thursday, March 26th) at 8 PM, Ron Hawkins (Lowest of the Low, The Rusty Nails, The Do Good Assassins) tomorrow (Friday, March 27th) at 7 PM, Scrapes at 10 PM and then Rollie & The Navy Brats sitting in for The Carletones on Saturday, March 28th at 10 PM.

The weekend is upon us and, even though it’s Friday the 13th – oooohhh, scary – we’ve got great stuff lined up for this evening, tomorrow night and then St. Patrick’s Day on the 17th of March.

Firstly, one of THE most fun bands in the city – Roxy & The Underground Soul Sound – take over The Carleton stage tonight (Friday, March 13th) with their exuberant take on classic-era Funk and Soul. Grab your dancing shoes and come out. Live music starts after 10 PM and it’s only $5 at the door to get in!

March 14th, sees our regular Saturday night band – the mighty Carletones – rocking Argyle Street in their usual inimitable fashion. If you like rock music, performed by some of the best musicians in the city (and who doesn’t, really?), then The Carleton is the place to be. Live music starts around 10:30 and it’s only $5 at the door to get in.

St. Patrick’s Day falls on Tuesday (March 17th) this year and we’ve got some fantastic entertainment lined up in the persons of award winning fiddlers Wendy MacIsaac and Chrissy Crowley, along with friends Darren MacMullen and Ken Ryan.

The foot stomping will start at 8:30 PM and – get this – it’s FREE to get in! We’ll be open for lunch and dinner as well and I expect there’ll be some nice drink specials to help lure you out of the house. It’s a good day to be Irish or pretend that you are!

 

It’s Thursday night (March 12th) in Halifax and what are you going to do with this rare occasion when the parking ban has been lifted and there is no snow on the horizon? Ready to leave your cave? We strongly suggest you come to The Carleton to see one of Canada’s most respected songwriters – Stephen Fearing – in what will probably be his last show as a Haligonian!

Astonishingly, there are still some tickets left for the show. Show time is 7 PM and $20 is the price of admission.

While we are the acknowledged best live music venue east of Montreal, we don’t always have shows. Tonight (Tuesday, March 10th) and tomorrow night (Wednesday, March 11th) are nights like that. We are open at 4 PM for our excellent new Happy Hour – until 6 PM – and then we’ll be serving our fantastic-as-usual dinner menu.

If you’re out for a stroll, or have someone visiting you, or a special occasion (birthday, anniversary), you should drop in for a meal and a drink or two in our historic building. You can’t buy history and we have it in spades!

If you are looking specifically for live music, you won’t do better than Stephen Fearing‘s Halifax swan song show on Thursday night (March 12th). At this writing there are still tickets left (unbelievably) and you can find them in the shows bar to the left of this post.

Spring is coming, folks. Get a leg up and come visit us soon!