SEE Magazine
Issue #393: June 14, 2001
Copyright © 2001. All Rights Reserved

Music by SEE Staff Boy, are our faces red! Last week we ran down for you the results of our sixth annual Best of Edmonton poll, in which our readers tell us their favourite people, places and things to do around Edmonton. But by some weird twist of fate – call it an oversight, inebriation or incompetence – we managed to leave out a few categories and not mention a local institution readers have been picking as Edmonton’s best live music venue for six years and counting. If you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re referring to the Sidetrack Café (10333 - 112 St.), the venerable restaurant, bar and music hall that celebrated 20 years in business just this past spring. If we could turn back time, to paraphrase Cher, we would have made sure the Sidetrack received its accolades along with all the other Best-of winners. But alas, we lack Cher’s incredible mastery of time, space and dimension, so we’ll just have to single out the Sidetrack for lavish praise right now. Even amidst criticisms that their high standards in booking the best touring roots and rock acts were slipping, the Sidetrack hosted plenty of great music in the last year, including notable gigs by Wide Mouth Mason, the Rheostatics, the Weakerthans, Steve Forbert, and Hawksley Workman, and that barely begins to tot up the talent that has crossed the Sidetrack stage, our city’s only presenter of live music every night of the week. Best of all, the club boasts some of the best sound for live music in the city, if not the province. Not content to coast on their past achievements, the Sidetrack’s upcoming roster should make them solid contenders for the best live venue next year. Jazz City alone provides plenty of incentives to head to the ’Track, starting with the crazy, funky hip hop antics of scratch DJ Kid Koala and his band Bullfrog on Friday, June 22. The June 23 gig with groove supergroup Metalwood should be a festival highlight, though the same might be said of the Puentes Brothers on June 25, The New Deal on June 26, the return of Jack Semple with Calgary fusioneers Terrain on June 27 and the barrio rock of San Francisco’s Los Mocosos on June 28. And they say, if you listen closely, you’ll hear whispers on the breeze about the return of Alejandro Escovedo to the Sidetrack in early July. Music aside, the Sidetrack has a big patio, an extensive menu (including a great brunch buffet on Sundays) and that cool table-hockey game. Now how much would you pay? And so, happy belated congratulations to the Sidetrack on their sixth straight year as the Best Live Venue in Edmonton and many happy – though hopefully not belated – returns.

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