By Meg Tilley — RogersPlace.com
Live music returned to Rogers Place Tuesday night.
After an impressive 6-2 victory by the Edmonton Oilers over the Tampa Bay Lightning Monday night, the venue transformed from hockey rink to concert venue, readying to welcome Old Dominion as one of their stops on the Happy Endings world tour.
“We walked into that room today, it’s huge,” said lead singer Matthew Ramsey.
“It was like ‘Wow, this feels like the big time,’ so it feels incredible when we know that many people are coming to see us play, and they obviously know our music well enough to buy tickets, so we’re excited for this show.”
Having kicked-off the Canadian leg of their tour in Regina, Edmonton became the fifth stop for the American country crooners, featuring new Canadian country groups The Washboard Union and Cold Creek County, set to open in all of their Canuck northern stops.
“We’re going across the world, actually, so this is, Canada is kind of the kick-off to the world tour,” said multi-instrumentalist band member Trevor Rosen.
“So, we’re going to go back to the States for a couple of shows. We’re going to go to the UK, we’re going to go to Australia and then come back to the States.”
The band — consisting of Ramsey, lead guitarist Brad Tursi, Rosen, bassist Geoff Sprung and drummer Whit Sellers — is a tight-knit brotherhood, friends since the group’s inception, having released two full-length albums, their most recent being Happy Endings, and two EPs.
“We always say that we wouldn’t want to do this alone so now you have your buds to bounce ideas off of and make decisions with and celebrate when you have success,” said Ramsey. “It’s good to have your friends out and be a part of it.”