Time: 8 p.m.
Tickets: $32.50
Ridley Bent
http://www.ridleybent.ca
http://twitter.com/ridleybent
http://www.myspace.com/ridleybent
As ever, there are quieter moments as well. Ridley's never afraid to pepper his records with a few thoughts on love and loneliness - and his evolving cast of moonshine-running, racecar-driving malcontents tend to know their way around the ladies as well as they do the back roads of the west. Of course these are love stories told the way only Ridley can; tracks that run the gamut from hard and bitter to hardly better, including a beautifully rendered, deliberately down-tempo take on the classic Dickey Lee song made famous by George Jones in 1962, "She Thinks I Still Care". While much of Ridley's new material is drawn from real life experiences he's gathered up on the road, Rabbit On My Wheel still has its share of shady characters, jackknifing tractor-trailers and whiskey-fuelled bar fights. And for those who identify strongly with Ridley's less reasonable characters - the ones who tend to prefer to stir things up with a pistol in one hand and a bottle in the other - there's The Blood Trilogy.
A companion EP recorded during the same sessions and co-written with Dunn - a highly satisfying three-song western epic of violence and vengeance informed by Ridley's ongoing fascination with the bleak worlds of writers like John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy. Simply put, whether it's love going strong but wrong in "Livin' With Her Ex", the straight up hooks of the album's title track, or the three way struggle between Junior Johnson, the whiskey and the wife, on lead single, "I Can't Turn My Back On the Bottle", Rabbit On My Wheel has everything listeners have come to expect from Ridley Bent and more - A smoking twelve-song set chock full of fast cars, fine looking ladies and fist fights that finds Ridley burning through a landscape of big country skies, with one hand on the steering wheel and one eye on the bottle every mile of the way.
Ridley
Bent is back with his latest release Wildcard the anticipated follow up
of Rabbit on My Wheel showcasing the Western Canada based Country
artist's keen fascination for characters whose life on the straight and
narrow rarely lasts past the nearest exit to a short, crooked road.
Ridley Bent continues to weave tales of wisdom and intrigue with titles such as 'Fill Yer Boots' about a truck driving
card player, and 'Crooked and Loaded' written about a shoot out with a
posse of outlaws. Produced by the John MacArthur Ellis and supported by
an all star band of country musics finest Wild Card will take your mind
away and get your toes tapping as Ridley Bent does what he does best..!
On Wildcard the 2009 CCMA nominee and 7-time BCCMA winner's
storytelling and songwriting chops are sharper than ever. Although the
tales are still as tall as they come, and the characters as large as
life or larger, the cast of hard-drinking, fast-driving characters
Ridley unleashes on Wildcard tend to be a shade less hell-bent on
self-destruction than they are with keeping their lives between the
lines and out of the ditch.
Channeling the high-energy
performance ethic of artists like Dwight Yoakum and Little Feat, Ridley
and his band tear a deep strip off the joint with tracks like “Brooklyn
Texas”. Of course these are love stories told the way only Ridley can;
tracks that run the gamut from hard and bitter to hardly better,
including a beautifully rendered, deliberately down-tempo take on the
classic Tom Petty song , “You Got Lucky”
While much of
Ridley's new material is drawn from real life experiences he's gathered
up on the road, Wildcard still has its share of shady characters,
jackknifing tractor-trailers and whiskey-fuelled bar fights. And for
those who identify strongly with Ridley's less reasonable characters -
the ones who tend to prefer to stir things up with a pistol in one hand
and a bottle in the other - there's The Blood Trilogy. A companion EP
recorded during the same sessions and co-written with Dunn - a highly
satisfying three-song western epic of violence and vengeance informed by
Ridley's ongoing fascination with the bleak worlds of writers like John
Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy.
